


Follow Me Home

by KTag12542



Series: Follow Me [3]
Category: Black Panther (2018), Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2020-07-29 02:37:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 124,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20074747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KTag12542/pseuds/KTag12542
Summary: It's been almost two years since the Leipzig battle and the Venen-ka portals.  The Avengers have healed their schism, and those of them who were under house arrest are on the verge of being reinstated.What's more, the Earth is now host to not one but two sets of alien visitors:  Thor and the refugees from Asgard, and representatives from a potential ally, j'Brenn.It's always good to make new friends, right?But then a sudden attack by enhanced personnel endangers the Earth-j'Brenn alliance and puts the Avengers back in the global spotlight.  Can the team track down their mysterious new enemy in time to prevent a war?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> All right: let's try a sequel.
> 
> You don't have to have read Follow Me Through for this to make sense. Follow Me In Snapshots is not essential either, but it is helpful.
> 
> I plan to update every two weeks. Hope you enjoy!

Tony could pinpoint down to the second the moment that Thaddeus Ross sold out Earth to j'Brenn. It happened less than one minute after the world learned that Bruce Banner was back.

The _hirethe_ were making yet another public appearance. They just _adored_ those. The three of them would have sat onstage with that Alaskan cat that kept getting elected mayor if it had meant that a bunch of people showed up and talked about them.

Admittedly, they were in rather better company than a cat this time. The _hirethe_ had been in Addis Ababa for several days' worth of meetings with the African Union Commission, after which they and three of the Commissioners hosted a town hall to discuss all the ways that the Brenith alliance was going to benefit African nations. It was a not-so-subtle response to the fact that T'Challa still refused to engage in talks or trade with j'Brenn. The _hirethe_ accepted his edict graciously… and then went out of their way to befriend all of his neighbors.

Tony and Rhodey, for their part, had been in the neighborhood to renew acquaintances with Thor. The site of the Asgardian settlement was a gift from T'Challa: a piece of territory that sat within Wakanda's national borders but outside their energy shield. At first blush, Wakanda and Asgard made an odd combination, but Tony knew the backstory. The US had refused to discuss sanctuary unless Thor agreed to extradite Loki. Other countries Thor had approached had taken the hint and imposed similar conditions: turning over Loki to Earth-based authorities, or else handing over his ship and letting a team of engineers take apart the engine.

Wakanda, however, was uniquely positioned not to give a shit about whether the US approved of their decisions. T'Challa had granted asylum readily, asking only that Thor keep his quirky adopted brother out of sight.

So yeah, this was all perfectly fine and in no way on the cusp of exploding in their collective faces.

Thor was sporting an eyepatch and a slick new haircut. He was… well, he was doing okay for a guy who'd lost his father, his planet, and his favorite hammer. At least he had plenty to occupy his time, what with helping his people to settle in and build a self-sustaining colony. Most of the Asgardians were still living in temporary structures that had been donated by Wakanda. Ropes strung from posts marked out the planned streets and boundaries of their new town. Thor gave them the tour; Tony watched for a bit while one group of Asgardians raised the frames for the walls and roof of a new house, and another group laid foundations in the next plot over.

The ship — which, yes, Tony wanted to get his hands on as much as the next engineer — sat behind the settlement. Thor didn't bring them anywhere near it.

Tony offered resources, of course, but Thor declined.

"King T'Challa has already been more than generous," he said. "The task of building our new home belongs to me and my people."

Then he smiled — a very good facsimile of his usual sunny grin, and Tony said that as an expert in acting like everything was fine when nothing was.

Their visit wound down soon thereafter. They'd seen hide nor hair of Loki, which Tony for one was not complaining about.

Next stop: Birnin Zana, and a quick chat with T'Challa. It was thanks in no small measure to him that the Avengers had something resembling a future, and since Tony and Rhodey represented two thirds of the Avengers complement that was currently mobile, they had an obligation to keep the lines of communication open.

They arrived at the palace as scheduled and met T'Challa in a small conference room. The conversation moved briskly: Wakanda was fine, T'Challa was fine, and no, he did not particularly want to discuss Wakanda's lack of diplomatic relations with j'Brenn, or their increasingly icy relations with the US.

"You are aware, of course, that the _hirethe_ are in Addis Ababa," T'Challa said, firmly changing the subject.

Tony nodded. "Heard about that, yeah."

"The Brenithi plan to put on one of their ceremonial performances tomorrow evening. Have you seen one?"

"A couple of clips on TV," Rhodey said. "Never in person. Why?"

"I'm told your Secretary Ross will be in attendance," said T'Challa, and held up two tickets. "I wonder what brings him to this part of Africa?"

And that was how Tony and Rhodey, in their Sunday best, came to be taking their seats in a packed theater, fifth row mezzanine.

Tony craned his neck to peer over the rail. j'Brenithi had an abiding love of personal space, which in this case meant that there were only two of them together in a box that was designed to seat four. Kith and Bri shared the first one; behind them were Tor and, to Tony's surprise, Kel. She hardly ever traveled with the _hirethe_ anymore, and in fact the last time Tony'd heard from her, she'd told him she was being sent back to j'Brenn for a few months.

She looked good, dressed in her formal black and gold. Hopefully they could chat after the show.

In the third box, Ross sat with a collection of aides, as predicted. (Tony wasn't nearly as happy to see him.) The rest of the crowd was mostly human, but there were a few more Brenithi scattered throughout, conspicuous due to their height. Tony wondered if a human who got stuck sitting behind one could get a discount on their ticket.

"Okay," Rhodes said. "We're here, they're here. Now what?"

_Good question_. "Well, I for one plan on enjoying an evening at the theater," Tony said. "Maybe catch up with a friend afterward, see if she's heard any good gossip. No sense in me trying to talk to Ross, but he doesn't entirely despise you, if you felt like saying hi."

"Oh, that'll be fun, thanks."

The house lights dimmed, and the chatter from the crowd around them stilled. Tony turned his attention to the stage.

From what he'd heard, these Brenith shows were generally solemn affairs. The point was to honor whomever in attendance held the highest social status, which in this crowd had to be Tor, Bri or Kith. The play would be a dramatic retelling of some great triumph from their military record. Swordplay would almost certainly be involved.

The first players to appear were the chorus, dressed in unornamented black. They emerged from a side door and spread out in front of the stage. Their footfalls clicked across the floor in perfect sync until the last one took their place. Then silence fell.

A pause the length of a long breath. Then the chant began. Tony was more of a classic rock guy himself, but he had to admit that the complex harmonies were captivating. The voices were deep, resonant, and edged with anger. This story was not going to be altogether cheerful.

The chorus was speaking z'Brel, of course. Projected onto the wall beside the stage was a translation, albeit into Amharic. FRIDAY helpfully superimposed the English version on Tony's glasses.

Next came the actors. There were four of them, to begin with. They emerged one by one, each one getting a moment to take the stage with all due solemnity as the chorus announced their name and clan affiliation. (The names… weirdly, they were ringing bells for him, but Tony couldn't place the reference.)

The fifth actor didn't arrive to the sound of a record scratch, but only because j'Brenithi had never invented records. Their face was painted a caricaturish shade of light pink, and their right hand was tucked up into their sleeve so that only the elbow protruded. They came shuffling out on their knees, and the chant ceased mid-word.

There was scattered laughter from the crowd — tentative at first, when people weren't sure if this was meant to be as farcical as it looked, then more loudly as the Brenithi joined in.

Tony didn't laugh. Neither did Rhodes.

The new arrival looked around the stage in exaggerated confusion, as if wondering what the problem was.

A spotlight shone into the second box. It found Kel — with her pink skin and missing hand — on her feet and gesturing with histrionic indignation. Beside her, her father chuckled indulgently at the spectacle.

The actor portraying her made a show of shading their eyes and leaning forward. An overly broad shrug of their shoulders conveyed the hopelessness of spotting anyone so tiny. Kel hopped up onto the armrests of her seat and shook her fist even more vigorously.

Pantomime ensued. _Is there a problem_? _I'm not that short!_ _Are you sure_? _Have you checked_? Oh, how the crowd laughed.

Finally, the actor got up off their knees and gestured to their newly restored height — _happy_? Kel responded with a rapidfire outburst on the subject of the missing hand. The actor gestured at Kel's right arm — _the hand's not there, is it_? The gist of Kel's retort seemed to be that it shouldn't be missing this early in the story.

Finally, the actor popped their hand out of their sleeve. Kel took her seat again, apparently mollified.

The other four had been waiting patiently through this whole rigamarole. Now they drew back, slowly and respectfully, yielding center stage to the one portraying Kel.

The chorus started up again, very softly. The actor raised both hands before their face, and paused.

When a quick flick of the actor's hands revealed their face again, the clumsy pink paint had vanished. In its place: five vertical lines, drawn in gold.

The play began in earnest. Tony had heard the tale before, as it happened. Kel and her four squadmates were tasked with infiltrating an enemy base. En route, they discovered that their expected reinforcements were about to walk into a trap. They split up. One group continued on their mission, while Kel and a second character, Lin, moved to cut off the advancing enemy army.

The two of them got the longest combat scene in the piece. By the light of the setting sun, they climbed the foothills of a mountain range until they came to a narrow pass. The chokepoint. Behind them, the light faded; before them, growing drumbeats and the staccato voices of the chorus conveyed the size of the advancing army.

Then the enemy appeared. They wore plain black clothing and silver masks bearing twisted, savage features. Rank on rank, they fell upon the two defenders.

The athleticism on display was suitably impressive. Tony had heard from the crew who'd visited j'Brenn that these fights didn't just look real, they also felt real. The actors went into them unrehearsed, using real weapons, and fought with genuine intent, if not to kill, then at least to damage.

The set dressing was minimal. A couple of sheets hung on an angle to represent the mountain slopes on either side. Between them, Kel and her partner held their ground. They flew and leapt and twisted, two bodies moving as one. Enemy after enemy went down, often with a splash of real blood.

Then Kel lost her hand. It wasn't played for laughs this time. A blade carved into the limb and blood spurted from the artery. The actor dropped their sword and staggered backward, curling up around the wound. (Theatrical convention: the action slowed down around them, allowing the moment to register.) When they straightened again, the hand had been covered by a tight grey stocking.

The scene resumed. Kel snatched up her sword, but the momentum had clearly turned. She and Lin were driven back by their enemies. Overwhelmed. Lin went down first. Then Kel followed. Buried by bodies.

Tony couldn't imagine how she'd survived it. He wasn't even sure how the actor playing the scene survived it. But somehow Kel emerged again — clothes torn and bloodied, and a sword in her remaining hand. She defeated the last of the enemy as the sun came up.

He cheated. He tapped his glasses, and zoomed in on the real Kel. FRIDAY enhanced the dimly lit image enough to show that her face glistened with tears.

The other three characters got their turn in the spotlight next. They infiltrated the enemy base, disabling defense mechanisms as they went. Then they were discovered; another fight ensued, and another one of them fell in battle.

In the final scene, the three survivors were reunited. Through a complex chant, they and the chorus told the rest of the story: their efforts, and their companions' sacrifice, led to a victory that was the turning point in the war. Their enemy surrendered to j'Brenn a few months later.

(Well. That wasn't the _whole_ story. It left out the part where j'Brenn had been the aggressor in the first place, and the enemy army had simply been trying to throw their j'Brenithi conquerors off their planet. It also omitted the part where Kith had taken revenge for the failed rebellion by executing close to twenty percent of the survivors. This was, after all, a propaganda piece.)

When it was done, all of the players except for the original five actors retreated from the stage. The spotlight found Kel in the audience again. There was no trace of mockery now.

Someone had given her a headset in preparation for this moment. She stood, and said, "Lin verak Teth, shorath j'Brenithi. Ress verak Cro, shorath j'Brenithi." The names of the fallen.

The actors who had been Kel and her squadron bowed deeply. The lights went down.

The applause started up. Tony glanced left at Rhodey, who joined in with a pensive expression.

After a few moments in darkness, the stage lights came up again, and the troupe returned to take their curtain calls. The chorus emerged first, then the bit players and the stunt team, and finally the five leads.

But then something went wrong. All at once, the Brenithi on stage looked up toward the ceiling in obvious alarm. They backed away and started clustering together defensively.

Throughout the crowd, every other Brenith was doing the exact same thing.

Tony tapped his glasses again. "FRIDAY, what's—"

And that was when the Hulk crashed down through the roof.

He sailed past the mezzanine and landed in the aisle on the orchestra level. The theater floor splintered beneath his feet. He pounded his fists on the ground and snarled in rage, and screams of panic rang out in response.

Rhodey surged to his feet. "Shit, Tony, we need to get these people out of here!"

"FRIDAY, send us those suits _right now_!"

But both sets of armor were on Tony's jet, a couple miles away. It would take precious seconds and in the meantime—

There were two basic flavors of Hulk: the one who could tell friend from foe, and the one who was too blinded by rage to care. This was unmistakably the second kind. Fear turned the audience into a mob. Bodies scrambled over top of each other in their desperation to flee.

Too many targets, too many directions. It was the only thing that saved them all. The Hulk swung from one side to the other in obvious frustration, then gave a roar and ripped loose an empty seat, and flung it into the crowd.

(_Nothing Tony could do about it, nothing, not without a suit, no way to even reach the lower level in time to make a difference, come on Bruce please don't do this, please—_)

A blur of motion caught his eye. Tony turned in time to see Tor land the fifty-foot jump from his box to the floor in front of the stage. He straightened slowly, facing the Hulk.

It was a blatant challenge. The Hulk gave another vengeful bellow, and charged.

Kel's father was tall like all j'Brenithi were, but slender. No match for the Hulk's sheer mass.

But he faced him nevertheless, with not a trace of fear on his face. The Hulk wound up and swung, and Tor's hand came up in response. A green fist crashed into a red palm.

It was absurd. The Hulk could knock down buildings with that fist. He'd stunned a Chitauri Leviathan in its tracks. Tor should have been wiped off the map.

But somehow he absorbed the blow. His boots dug into the floor as he was driven backward, but he kept to his feet and tightened his grip on Hulk's fist. His eyes closed.

Hulk howled in rage when his puny target failed to be obliterated. He tried to draw his fist back. Couldn't. Confusion overtook anger.

Tor took a step forward, using his grip on Hulk's fist to push him down to his knees.

The fist was turning pink.

Tony had seen his share of Brenith teleneuropathic powers. He'd watched Kel drain the life out of her enemies with a touch of her hand, and he'd felt her repair stab wounds and broken bones the same way. He knew how powerful she was; he'd thought he'd known how powerful her people were.

He'd been very badly mistaken.

Tor continued to focus, and the Hulk began to shrink down. Over the space of a very, very long ten seconds, he morphed back into Bruce and hit the ground, unconscious.

_Then_ the two sets of armor showed up, which was _spectacular_ timing, but at least it made the hop down to the stage easier. Tony and Rhodey landed side by side just as Kel and the other two _hirethe_ came through the side door, followed by Ross.

"Poor man," Tor said, in that impeccable English that came out of a translator. "I believe you call it gamma radiation poisoning. There is no known cure. He was not in control of his impulses. We take no offense."

Ross was gazing like he'd just met the love of his life.

Kel stopped behind her father's left shoulder. Her face was blank; she didn't look at Tony. Kith and Bri accorded Tor polite nods, which he acknowledged in kind.

Bruce lay unconscious at their collective feet, neutralized by a touch.

* * *

Amazingly, it only took a modest amount of screaming before Tony got authorization to bring Bruce back to the compound. (Granted, he would have done it anyway, but this did make life simpler.) He wasn't sure if he had Kel to thank for that or not, but he did see both her and her father take Ross aside for a few private words while he and Rhodey were gathering Bruce up.

They carried him back to the jet before anyone could tell them otherwise, and took off for New York. En route, Tony made arrangements to pay for the damage to the theater, and to make sure that everyone's medical expenses were covered. There had been minor injuries and a few broken bones in the frantic dash for the exits, but nothing more serious. No fatalities, which was a goddamned miracle.

Bruce didn't surface once, not even eight hours later when they landed at Avengers Compound and transferred him to the residence. According to FRIDAY, his vitals were solid; he was just deeply asleep.

Rhodey had called ahead to alert the rest of the gang. By the time the jet landed, they were all caught up on the news. Someone in the theater had caught the confrontation between Hulk and Tor on video, and every news agency on the planet was having a field day with the clip. There wasn't much more that either of the eyewitnesses could add.

Rhodey and Vision were promptly ordered back to Africa to make some 'We are the official Avengers and we have our shit together' kinds of appearances. Tony stuck around to wait on Bruce.

The group at the compound collectively agreed not to crowd the guy when he first woke up. They took turns, one or two at a time, to wait in the common room for him to surface.

Twenty-four hours later, Tony was taking his shift. He'd brought work, of course. j'Brenithi liked nanotech? He'd give 'em more nanotech than they knew what to do with. (Steve had tried to make some kind of bullshit 'no engineering in the common room' rule, which obviously he was ignoring.) His sample of nanoparticles was set up on a tray, while he manipulated their programming through his tablet. He was starting to see some very promising power transfer properties when he heard a tentative set of footsteps approaching from down the hall.

"Hey!" Tony said, and set his tablet aside. "Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty."

Bruce looked a bit older and grayer than he had two years ago, but then, who among them didn't? He shuffled into the common room, still blinking the sleep from his eyes, and looked around in patent confusion.

"Tony?" he said. "Where am I?"

"You are, in the following order, on Earth, in the US, in New York State, on Avengers Compound," Tony said. "Also, this is less geographical and more metaphysical, but you're in that indeterminate state of not being under arrest so long as you voluntarily don't try to leave. Not the best-case scenario, I'll grant you, but also a pretty long way from the worst. How're you doing?"

"Okay, I think," Bruce said. "Uh. Hey, Tony?"

"Yeah?"

"Either I'm still dreaming — which is a distinct possibility — or a giant iridescent lizard with wings just walked past the window behind you. Did… did that happen?"

"Yeah, that's George," Tony said.

"That's George?"

"Yeah."

"Okay," Bruce said. "Uh… who… what… _why_—"

"All very good questions," said Tony. "George is a horse. Not _my_ horse, obviously. Hey — you wouldn't be in the market for a horse, would you? 'Cuz we've got one. Free for the asking."

Bruce looked from Tony to the window and back. "Um. Not really."

"Okay," he said. "Let me know if you change your mind. By the way, did you see the cheetah yet?"

"The cheetah?"

"Yeah."

"No."

"If you're interested, just step outside and take a stroll northeast. Can't miss it."

Tony gestured in the appropriate direction. Bruce, who was clearly still a little out of it, wandered past him in the direction of the exit.

The cheetah would probably wake him up, at least. In the meantime, Tony refocused on his work. His lovely little nanoparticles were still holding the shape of a gauntlet. The trick was convincing them to form a flight stabilizer in a manner that wouldn't fry the interior. Tony retrieved his tablet and continued tweaking the parameters.

Eventually, the footsteps returned.

"Hey, Tony?" Bruce said.

"Yeah?"

"There's an enclosure out there, and it's got some kind of huge six-legged carnivorous mammal living in it."

"Yeah, that's Ursula," Tony said.

"That's Ursula?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. Could someone please walk me through this from the beginning?"

* * *

Obviously, they did all get together and walk him through it from the beginning. There was quite a lot of material to cover: the Accords, the dust-up with Steve, the portals.

At one point, Bruce put his hands up and said, "Okay, can we just… can I try to sum up what we've covered so far? A few weeks after the Avengers broke up and most of you became fugitives, you were all transported through a portal to an alien planet in an adjacent universe. Except since Tony went a day earlier, he was there ten months longer."

"That's right," said Steve.

"And you lost your powers."

"I did."

Bruce turned to Tony. "And then you _punched_ him?"

Tony stared hard at the ceiling.

"You did punch me, Tony," Steve said mildly.

"For which I _apologized_!" Tony snapped. "And it's astonishing to me how every single rendition of this story leaves out the critical fact that _you grabbed me first_. For which _I_ never got an apology, incidentally."

Steve's expression sobered. "You're right," he said. "I shouldn't have laid hands on you when you clearly didn't want me to. It was wrong. I'm sorry."

Which was all well and good, except Tony was almost positive that Steve was doing the Captain America face. Those big blue eyes of his were opened just a little too widely to be taken seriously.

However, _acknowledging_ the Captain America face was not going to get him anywhere. "Better," Tony said. "Now. Can we _please_, as a group, as official Avengers policy, in the spirit of cooperation and with an eye toward the future, move the _fuck_ on?"

"The whole camp was watching, too," Sam told Bruce, "because Tony blew up the explosives shed not one minute beforehand."

"Jean was furious," said Natasha.

Oh good _lord_. "Remind me, why do I let all of you live here again?" Tony asked. "Oh, that's right, because otherwise you'd be in prison."

They eventually made it to the end of the story without too much more gratuitous Tony abuse (except for the goddamn rain story — they just _had_ to run through that again). Then it was Bruce's turn.

His rendition was hampered by the fact that it had mostly been the Hulk running the show. However, he was still able to describe the bizarre alien gladiatorial games on the planet Sakaar, and to outline the mess with Thor's sister Hela on Asgard.

"The last thing I remember was jumping out of a spaceship and landing on a bridge," Bruce said. "Really painfully. After that… nothing, until I woke up here. I don't even know how it ended. But if we're here, we must have won, right?"

"According to…" Sam paused and snapped his fingers. "New guy with the eyes."

"Heimdall," said Natasha.

"Right. According to what Heimdall told the UN, the only way they could stop this Hela was by destroying Asgard."

Bruce sat back. "My God. I had no idea."

Steve said, "Roughly four hundred Asgardians survived Hela's attack and made it off the planet before it was destroyed. They're living in a settlement in Wakanda, near the southern border. There could be a small number more who were off-world at the time and are stranded now. That's all that's left."

Bruce shook his head. "I… don't even know what to say to that. How's Thor holding up? Have you seen him?"

"Yeah, Rhodey and I stopped in on him the day before your big entrance," Tony said. "He's doing about as well as you'd expect for a guy who's lost almost everything there is to lose. Holding it together for the sake of his people. We, uh…" He grimaced at the blatant inadequacy. "Those of us who can travel are planning to check in on him as often as he'll let us. Beyond that…"

"Yeah." Bruce sighed. "So you've got Asgardians in Wakanda, and you've also got these Breniths—"

"Brenithi, for a specific group," Natasha said. "j'Brenithi for a generic one."

"You've also got these… Brenithi. And they were the ones who stopped the Hulk at the concert?"

"More specifically, _one_ Brenith stopped the Hulk," Tony said. "Single-handedly."

"What? _How_?"

"Officially, they're teleneuropaths," Natasha told him. "Though most of us just call them empaths. At a distance, their abilities are passive. They can sense the nervous systems of other living beings, out to a radius of at least a mile."

"Skin contact, though, is where it gets interesting," said Sam. "If a Brenith gets a hand on you, they can take your whole body over. They can create sensation, block it out, repair tissue or destroy it, or suck the life right out of you in what looks like a _nasty_ way to go."

"That's what Tor did to you," Tony said. "Tor's Kel's father, by the way. You threw a punch, he caught it. Skin to skin. It took some effort, but he turned you back into you."

Bruce blinked a few times. "I'm… not sure how to feel about that."

Natasha said, "We're all feeling pretty tense about it, if that helps."

"Not really."

"I suppose you have no way of knowing how you got to Ethiopia in the first place," Steve said.

Bruce shook his head. "No, sorry. Though… it sounds like the sort of thing that Loki would find amusing."

"Right," said Tony. "Because now we've got that guy."

The whole scenario seemed like such an obvious setup. The _hirethe_ had invited Ross to the concert, then arranged for this demonstration of their powers. (Tony was _really_ trying to avoid the phrase 'act out one of Ross's fantasies', but there it was.) Unfortunately, when there was God of Mischief in town, any given event that looked like a conspiracy could just as easily have been something he dreamed up for shits and giggles.

(Kel would know, wouldn't she, whether Tor and the other _hirethe_ had been expecting the Hulk to attack? Tony _really_ needed to talk with her in private.)

Bruce asked, "So you've had j'Brenithi on Earth for how long now?"

"The official First Contact Ceremony was almost ten months ago," Steve said. "They spent the next four months on a global tour, introducing themselves to just about every country on Earth. Since then, everyone's been moving very cautiously. The main thing they've been doing is opening embassies. We're up to what, thirteen?"

"New Zealand was officially recognized last week," said Wanda. "That's fourteen."

"New Zealand?" Sam muttered. "Damn. I had twenty bucks on Sweden."

"And both sides have started to participate in technological exchanges."

"From their side, it's mostly been medical science," Natasha said. "Nanosurgery, regenerative therapies. They have an innate capacity to repair their own bodies that's astonishing — even to the point of regrowing entire organs. They donated some of their tissues for us to study, on the conditions of adequate security and an international research team."

"I'll get you the papers that have come out so far," Tony said. "You'll like 'em. But they're keeping a tight lid on the good stuff. Nothing with military applications yet. Everyone's holding their breath to see who gets the first look at an interstellar engine."

"What are we giving them?" Bruce asked.

"Well, they like gold," said Sam.

"Gold, platinum, other precious metals," Tony said, "plus raw materials of a more prosaic variety. A person might conjecture that they've all but mined out most of their colony worlds already. Beyond that, we've managed to teach them a thing or two about ultra-dense data storage and high-speed processing."

Natasha said, "You should also be aware that Wakanda has no diplomatic relationship with j'Brenn, for reasons that they're keeping to themselves. Whereas the US has next to no diplomatic relationship with Asgard because Thor refused to turn over his brother and his ship."

"Yeah, we can't leave that out," said Tony. "Our illustrious Secretary of State is betting it all on red."

"Right," said Bruce. "_Secretary_ Ross. That's… gonna take some getting used to."

"So now that you're all caught up, what do you think?"

He took a slow look around the group. "I think we're sitting on a powderkeg. Or ten. You've got Wakanda, Asgard, j'Brenn, us… It's only a matter of time before someone gets greedy or impatient, or…" He looked down and gave a quiet chuckle. "Or loses their temper."

Steve sighed. "Yeah. That's pretty much where the rest of us are, too."

* * *

Asgard was gone.

It was the thought with which Thor began each day. Asgard lived on in its people, yes. He had done everything in his power to save them, and would continue to protect them for as long as he had strength. No other task in his life was so important as this one. His people survived, and he was profoundly grateful for the hospitality that Wakanda had offered.

But the gratitude occupied a separate place in his heart from the loss. It was a thousand things. A thousand moments collected across a lifetime. The scent of the air and the gentle breeze that came down from the mountains just after sunrise. The dance of light over the bridge to the Bifrost. The joyful chaos of a hundred of his fellow warriors celebrating in the Great Hall. (All dead now at Hela's hand.) His mother's voice. His father's. (Dead.) Excitement in his belly and lightning at his fingertips as he rode off into battle with dear friends at his side — Hogun, Volstagg, Fandral (all dead).

All of it gone now. Preserved only in memory.

(All things end.)

This little patch of land on a distant planet was lovely and generous, and wrong. Wrong in every detail, in an uncountable number of ways. He sat on a cot that felt wrong, in a small shack that had been donated by Wakanda and assembled out of a kit, that looked wrong and smelled wrong, drinking water that tasted wrong. It was all wrong, it wasn't home and it never _would_ be—

No. Stop. Stop that.

And even though the last thing this situation needed was another complicating factor, it had one. Of all the races that could have taken an interest in Earth, it had to be _j'Brenithi_.

When Thor had been only a boy, Odin had told him tales of the time that Brenith forces had dared to encroach upon the Nine Realms. They'd been soundly defeated and sent fleeing back into the underbelly of the galaxy. He knew that they'd rebuilt somewhat in the intervening centuries. In fact, they'd taken to calling themselves an empire again, though the scattering of planets they claimed barely merited the term.

He doubted that j'Brenn in its current state would launch a full-scale invasion against Earth. Humans were clever, adaptable and resilient. More than enough for the risks of a direct confrontation to outweigh the gains. But now, it seemed, they were deploying a new weapon: diplomacy.

Heimdall, who spoke for Asgard in an organization called the United Nations, told him that j'Brenn was well regarded on Earth, particularly in the geographic region known as the United States. (Strange, how a planet so fragmented so often named itself after unity.) j'Brenn had taken care to befriend each of Earth's most powerful nations — a difficult task, given that they were no friends of each other — with the exception of Wakanda. King T'Challa, quite rightly in Thor's opinion, engaged in no trade with j'Brenn and would not admit j'Brenithi into his country.

Thor had never met the _ti-hireth_ personally, but he'd heard rumors of brutal acts and barbaric conquests. Whatever Kith's goal was, it certainly wasn't friendship. Thor was not looking for another battle. But if j'Brenithi threatened Earth, he would help to defend it.

"Brooding again, brother?"

Thor looked up to find Loki standing in his doorway. He picked up his empty drinking cup and threw it, because throwing something at Loki was a good beginning to any given conversation. Loki caught it with a heavy sigh, and tossed it aside.

"Let me guess," he continued. "You're planning to spend yet another day hammering nails and carrying rocks. How kingly of you."

"As opposed to your version of the job, which seemed to involve a lot of lounging on pillows and watching plays about yourself?"

Stiffly, Loki said, "I was a patron of the arts."

"Yes, I am going to build houses today," Thor said, and stood up from the cot, "because houses are what my people need. Our Wakandan neighbors have been generous enough to give us this land. The work is up to us."

"Ah, yes, this lovely patch of dirt. Remind me — why did you insist on settling us in the hottest and most uncomfortable part of this wretched planet?"

_They were the only ones who would take us_. But Loki knew that perfectly well, and knew that their options were so limited precisely because Thor had refused to turn him over.

"You could join me, you know," Thor said instead. "Hammering nails and carrying rocks."

"Thank you," he said acerbically. "But I prefer my chambers."

"You don't have chambers. You have an escape pod. A very _small_ escape pod."

"An escape pod with climate control," Loki said. "Enjoy your manual labor, brother."

It was barely midmorning, but the day had already grown hot. Some people had begun the day's work, and more were gathering. Thor greeted each by name as he passed.

The vast majority of the Asgardian military had perished in the battle with Hela, but soldiers weren't needed now; carpenters, smiths and stonemasons were. Thor still struggled to think of himself as king, in truth, but one thing he believed he was learning was that it was at least as important for him to trust his people as it was for his people to trust him. They had all the master craftspeople they needed; Thor had given them free rein to design the settlement and assign construction tasks to the rest of them, himself included. It was early days, of course, but so far the work was proceeding well.

Valkyrie walked by with a bundle of timber over one shoulder. "There's someone at the gate," she said as she passed. "Human. Asking for you."

Interesting. T'Challa generally sent messages by electronic mail, through the simple communications gear that he'd donated. Apparently this was something different.

The gate was barely deserving of the name: it was nothing more than a log that had been laid across two support posts. There was indeed a human waiting on the other side of it. He was a man of less than average years for a human, and he was paler of skin than those from Wakanda tended to be. He wore a long-sleeved jacket in spite of the heat, and stood with his hands buried in the pockets.

"Hi there," said the man.

"Hello," Thor said. "Are you from Wakanda?"

"It's been a long time since I've been from anywhere," he responded. "I heard about what happened to your planet. How you're building a new home here. I was wondering if you could use another set of hands." He withdrew his from his pockets, revealing the left one to be mechanical. "I've got these two, and I'd like to do some good with them."

The man's face was young, but his eyes were not. Thor lifted the gate and beckoned him inside.

"Your help is welcome," he said. "I am Thor Odinson."

The man clasped his hand. "I'm Bucky."


	2. Chapter 2

**Interstice**

_The world was large, and she was small._

_Possibly._

_In truth, it was difficult to tell. They hadn't warned her about that. They hadn't warned her about a lot of things. Though, really, how could they have? How could anyone have explained how difficult it would be to stay within the confines of herself — _here_, and only here, as opposed to _there _where two of her sisters were training, or _there _where one of her brothers fed._

_Everywhere. All at once. She was them and they were her. Linked together by a bond so complete that words failed. Nothing else was nearly as real — not her life before, and not the shadows who walked the corridors and observed._

_No. She'd been wrong._

_She was large, and the world was small._

* * *

The screen was a simple two-dimensional thing, since Thor's tiny cabin didn't have the room for a proper holoimage. It lit up, and a view of the Wakandan throne room appeared.

"King Thor," T'Challa said.

"King T'Challa, good morning!" Thor replied. "I realize we've had this conversation before, but I still have to ask — are these yours?"

He hefted the two infiltrators by the scruff of the neck and showed them to the camera.

T'Challa gave a sigh. "It happened again?"

"Yes, it did," Thor said. "Not only did this particular pair trespass on your country and my ship, but in the process of taking apart what they mistakenly believed to be the hyperspace engine, they triggered an overload in the fuel cells that, if Valkyrie hadn't gotten there in time to stop it, probably would have killed us all." He gave the two humans in his hands a little shake. "Sure they're not yours?"

"I'm quite sure," said T'Challa, "but let me make a call."

He tapped a bead on his wrist. A moment later, Thor's screen divided in two, and Shuri appeared in the second panel.

She took one look at the scene and said, "T'Challa, you need to stop bugging me every time a couple of spies try to break into the Asgardian ship. If I wanted to study their engine, I would go there myself. Good morning, King Thor."

"Good morning, Princess Shuri."

"Did they break anything?"

"No, but not for lack of effort."

"Well, they aren't mine. Go ahead and throw them out."

"Thank you, Shuri," T'Challa said dryly, and her workshop vanished from the screen.

The infiltrators were quiet. They usually were at this point.

"Same arrangement as last time, then?" Thor asked.

"Yes, I'll send someone to collect them from you," T'Challa replied. "And in the meantime, I've been wanting to ask: are you familiar with the legal concept of an attractive nuisance?"

A short time later, Thor escorted the two spies to the front gate. (He'd offered them breakfast. They'd refused.) Heimdall was waiting for him on the Asgardian side, and two members of the Wakandan palace guard stood on the other. Thor bid the Wakandans good morning, then hefted his prisoners over the gate and dropped them off.

"King T'Challa is right," said Heimdall once they were alone again. "They will continue to try for as long as the ship remains."

"What alternative do we have?" Thor asked. "Hand it over and let the humans disassemble it, and very likely leave ourselves stranded here?"

"No, but perhaps we can remove it from sight," Heimdall said. "There is a group of our people living on the planet Miran. An envoy from Odin, dispatched several years ago. They recently attempted to summon the Bifrost. I wish to take the _Statesman_ there to collect them, and to search for other survivors."

Thor nodded slowly. It only postponed the problem, but at this point even a temporary solution would be welcome. "Yes. You must go, of course. But leave Loki's escape pod behind, or else he'll—" A far better idea abruptly occurred. "Unless you'd like to take him with you? A traveling companion to ease the burdens of… no?"

Heimdall, who was difficult to impress under the best of circumstances, looked singularly unimpressed at this. "I'll leave the pod," he said. "Loki is a problem that you will have to solve for yourself."

* * *

Throwing parties wasn't necessarily Steve's forte, but this was an event that merited a party. Freedom Day. His team's eighteen months were up, and they had been released from house arrest.

It put a slight damper on things that Steve still had six months to go, and therefore the only place he could throw a party was in that self-same house. Even so, he did his best. (Captain America always did his best.) The residence at the compound had pretty much every amenity imaginable, including a general-purpose rec room that was more than large enough for the guest list that Steve was expecting. He arranged for all the basics: there was food and drink, there was music, there were tables and chairs around the perimeter where people could sit and chat in smaller groups, and a wide open space in the center for more generalized mingling. He even put up some party streamers — red, white and blue, of course, because sometimes it was best to lean into it.

Steve had spent most of the day with a grin on his face. It was _weird_. He was okay. It was actually amazing how okay he was. On this particular occasion, he might have even been happy. He was _so_ proud of his team. Eighteen months was a long time, but they'd been patient and diligent about respecting their confinement conditions. As far as Steve was concerned, they'd more than earned the right to go back on active duty. Six months down the road, he would be able to join them. Maybe then they'd all get the chance to show the world what the Avengers were meant to be: a unified force acting in defense of the Earth.

And in the meantime? A party.

Officially, Freedom Day had happened several days ago. The moment they'd had their trackers removed, Sam, Natasha and Wanda had scattered to the four winds. Steve had expected as much — it was perfectly understandable that they would want to stretch their legs — which was why he'd planned the party for the following Saturday. That also gave Clint and Scott enough time to hold their own celebrations with their families, then travel to town.

Natasha and Wanda had returned that morning; Sam, a few hours later. They were already inside, as were Vision, Rhodey and Bruce. Steve stuck around a bit to make sure that everyone was settling in and finding the snacks, then headed to the front of the residence to meet the rest of the guests.

He didn't have long to wait before the first car was rounding the bend.

"Hey, Cap," Clint said as he stepped out of the driver's side of the rental sedan. "Long time, no see."

"Glad you could make it," Steve responded, and clasped the proffered hand. "Are you on your own?"

"Yeah, Laura doesn't want the kids within a hundred miles of this place. I can't say as I blame her."

"I guess that's fair." Steve turned to the second new arrival, who'd emerged from the passenger side. "Hi, Scott."

"Hey, Captain America!" he said, and gave a jaunty wave. "Great party! Or, I guess this is more the driveway than the party. Great driveway!"

Steve sent them off in the direction of the rec room, then checked his phone when a text came in. The next group had just reached the gate.

He'd realized early in the planning stages that there could have been no Freedom Day without the portals and all the changes that those experiences had wrought. That was why the next car to arrive didn't carry Avengers, but friends: Peter, Aaron, Alisha and Kiran.

It had been almost two years since Steve had seen any of them, but some things never changed. The back door sprang open to reveal Peter grinning wildly and vibrating with excitement.

"I am on Avengers Compound!" he announced. "This is me sitting in a car on Avengers Compound. This is me stepping out of a car onto Avengers Compound. These are my feet landing on—"

"We get the idea," said Kiran, who also hadn't changed much.

With only slightly less volume, Peter said, "This is me shaking hands with Captain America on Avengers Compound. Good evening, Captain America!"

"Hello, Peter," he said, aloud and in sign. "Thanks for coming."

"Not at all, Captain America! Thanks for inviting us! To this wonderful party here on Avengers Compound!"

"You never got the credit you deserved for all your help during the portal incident," Steve said. "I know one evening doesn't exactly make up for the last two years, but—"

"It's an _Avengers_ party!" Peter exclaimed. "It's _fantastic_! I never in my entire life imagined _ever_ that I'd be invited to an Avengers party on Avengers Compound with—"

"Honey, try to calm down a little," Aaron said fondly. He wrapped one arm around Peter's shoulders and offered Steve the other hand. "Hello, Steve."

Next in line to exchange greetings was Alisha. She'd been the very last RSVP; Steve had heard from Tony that she was intent on building up an ordinary life that was disconnected from her earlier adventures. He hoped that this invitation hadn't brought up bad memories.

If Alisha had had any qualms about attending, they weren't apparent on her face. "Pretty nice place you've got here," she said. "I'm surprised that outsiders are allowed."

"You're hardly outsiders," Steve replied, and gestured to the door. "A lot of people are already inside. It's through there at the end of the hall. You can't miss it."

"Thanks," said Aaron.

"This is me, walking through a door on Avengers Compound!"

Kiran had hung back a little while Steve was greeting the other three, and did not follow them inside.

"I admit, I'm a little surprised you invited me," Kiran said.

"I admit, I'm a little surprised you came," Steve replied.

Kiran's black hair was a bit longer than Steve remembered, and their expression was a bit softer. "I wasn't all that kind to you the last time we met."

"That was a long time ago."

"Yes, it was," Kiran said, and extended a hand. "I'd be grateful for the chance to start over."

"Consider it done."

The next two cars arrived together. First in line was one of Tony's splashy sports cars, carrying Tony and Pepper. He sent her in the direction of the party, then stopped alongside Steve to greet the second group.

The driver of the second car turned out to be Happy Hogan. From the back seat came Peter Parker, accompanied by a woman who had to be his aunt, May.

"Thanks, Happy," Peter said.

"Sure, kid." Happy turned to Tony. "So you want me to wait by the car, boss?"

"What are you—_no_, I don't want you to wait by the car," Tony said. "It's a party. You're invited. Go mingle. Relax."

"You're sure?"

"Of course I'm sure. I'm always sure."

"All right. If you're sure." He paused next to Tony and lowered his voice. "Which one of them's the telepath again?"

"There are three telepaths in there, actually," Tony replied, just as quietly. "So make sure you stay focused."

"Right."

"Don't think any passwords."

"No."

"Or run through any security protocols."

"Got it."

"Whatever you do, don't visualize the layout of any secure facilities."

"Of course not."

"Good. Then you got this."

"I got this."

He strode off.

Steve shot Tony a reproving look, which was ignored.

May was also watching these goings-on with obvious disapproval. Steve had been happy to invite her, since it seemed inappropriate to have Peter here otherwise. He had to admit, though, that he'd been surprised when she'd accepted. According to Tony, she was slowly coming to terms with her nephew's role as Spider-Man. That clearly didn't translate into much comfort with the Avengers.

He summoned his most wholesome Captain America smile. "You must be May Parker," he said. "Thanks for coming. I'm Steve Rogers."

She hesitated a moment, then took his hand. "Yes, I noticed that."

"Hey, Captain America!" Peter said. "This place is awesome — thanks for inviting us!"

"Steve, why don't you take these folks inside?" Tony said. "We're down to the last couple of stragglers now, right? I'll wait for them."

"Sure," said Steve, and led the way.

They arrived to a party in full swing. Most everyone had gotten themselves a drink or a plate of snacks. People mingled and chatted as music played in the background. (Steve had pulled some playlists off the internet and didn't recognize the song offhand.) No crises, no ideological conflicts. Just a collection of friends enjoying each other's company.

A few people started moving in Steve's direction when they saw the new arrivals. The first one to reach them was Vision.

May looked up. "Oh my."

"Good evening," Vision said pleasantly.

"Hey, Vision," said Peter. "This is my aunt, May Parker."

"A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Parker."

"Hi."

"Don't worry," Peter said to her, "I'll introduce you to— holy _crap_, that's Bruce Banner!"

"The _Hulk_ Bruce Banner?"

Bruce was indeed across the room, talking with Pepper.

"Hey, Spider-Man," said Natasha, joining the circle. "No Ned tonight?"

It took Peter a second to tear his eyes away from Bruce. "Uh — no, we couldn't bring Ned. This would have been impossible to explain to his mother." With a quick glance in May's direction, he added, "We _could_ have just said that he was hanging out at my place tonight—"

"But we're trying to make a break from the culture of lies and deception and running around behind the backs of parents and legal guardians," May replied, just as pointedly. "Right?"

Glumly, Peter said, "Yep. That's what we're doing."

"Sounds like a good policy," said Natasha. "Come on — let's go meet some people."

Tony showed up a moment later with the last of the guests in tow.

"Hey, Steve, look at this pair of gatecrashers I found," he said. "What do you want me to do — toss 'em in the lake?"

"It might be amusing to watch you try," Jean said.

God, it had been too long. They'd kept in touch by video chat and over email, but Steve hadn't seen her in person in almost two years. He found himself feeling a little self-conscious even as the smile spread across his face. He started to open his arms, then second-guessed at the last second and shifted to extend a hand. Jean smiled as well, and adroitly stepped in to embrace him.

"It's good to see you, Steve," she said once they'd both stepped back again. "You look well."

"So do you."

Next up was another good friend whom he hadn't seen in much too long.

"Hi, Steve," Kel said, and offered him a tap of her wrist.

"I'm glad you could make it," Steve said. "I hope this doesn't cause you any political problems."

"The _hirethe_ don't control everything I do," she said. "You're my friends. This is important."

"All right, let's get this shindig fired up," Tony said, and swept them all up in his wake. "Let's see, who don't you know? That's Bruce in the corner, here comes some guy who talks to ants—"

"Come on, man," Scott sighed.

"And this is Colonel James Rhodes. Rhodey to his friends, though you'll have to work that one out for yourselves. Rhodey — this is Jean, this is Kel."

"Colonel," Jean said.

"I've heard a lot about you," Rhodey said, and extended his hand. "Good to finally put a face to the name."

"Likewise."

Rhodey and Kel met eyes for a moment. She gave him a quick, restrained nod.

"I'm Scott, by the way," Scott said to Jean. "Scott Lang. Ant-Man. Hi there. So you're her, huh?"

"So they tell me."

He shifted to Kel. "And you're her too? The other her? Wow, you really…" His hand came up to touch his chin, mirroring the position of one of her scars. "Uh. I mean, I've seen you on TV. You do a good job!"

"Thank you."

"I guess we would have met a long time ago if I'd gone through the portal," he continued. "But honestly, portals aren't really my specialty. I'm more of a high-tech heist guy. Or I used to be. Obviously, heists of any kind would be a violation of my parole, so that's—"

Rhodes said sharply, "Hey, Lang, how did your eighteen months go?"

"Oh… uneventfully," Scott said with a shrug. "Just hung out at the house, really. Pretty much a complete lack of events of any kind."

"Really? So those reports of Giant-Man showing up in San Francisco last week — I guess you wouldn't know anything about that, right?"

"Yeah, what was up with that?" Scott asked, less than persuasively. "_So_ weird. But yeah, no, I was definitely not involved in that event. I was totally eventless. Ooh, is that a cheese platter?"

And off he went.

Rhodes arched his eyebrows at Jean, who didn't quite turn her head aside in time to hide her smile.

"Can I get you a drink?" he asked.

"That would be lovely, thank you." She looked over. "Tony, Steve—"

"Don't worry about it, we've got all evening," Tony said. "Go meet people, have fun. We'll catch up later."

Kel also took her leave, heading for the group that was forming around Wanda and Kiran.

"So who're we missing?" Tony asked Steve.

"Maria Hill is overseas," he replied. "Jane Foster is in Brazil, making some kind of time-sensitive observations of the j'Brenn fracture that I did not entirely understand. And Thor and T'Challa have governments to run, not to mention the travel issue."

Thor was being intransigent on the subject of extraditing Loki. In response, Ross was taking a hard line on issuing American tourist visas to Asgardians. Since the Bifrost and Mjolnir were both gone, Thor couldn't disregard those kinds of details as flagrantly as he once might have done.

"Then I guess this is it," Tony said. "Full house. This was a good idea. A nice gesture."

"They deserve it. But thanks."

There was still, even after all this time, a hint of caution in the way that he and Tony interacted. They'd talked through a lot of things, off and on, over the last eighteen months. Often tensely, sometimes with flared tempers, now and then taking days or weeks apart to settle down. The effort had been one hundred percent worth it, and Steve was confident now that both of them would, unreservedly, call the other a good friend. It was working. But neither of them could forget just how badly, how catastrophically things between them had been broken. It was worth being careful to keep that from happening again.

If nothing else, it was a pleasant change of pace that he and Tony were not the most potentially incendiary combination in the room.

Steve nodded toward the group in the far corner, where Jean and Rhodes were about to join Pepper and Bruce. "Have Jean and Pepper met before?"

"Yeah, we've had Jean over a couple times," Tony said. "It was a lot easier to convince her to come to Manhattan than to an isolated compound that was recently under FBI scrutiny."

Sure enough, Pepper was greeting Jean with familiar ease.

"That's good," Steve said. "I'm glad they get along."

"So am I," said Tony. "I wish I could take the credit, but it sure as hell wasn't anything I did. Both of them are just a lot more measured in their judgment than, say…"

"You or me?"

"For example. Actually, hold that thought — I just spotted an irresistible opportunity."

Peter Parker was nearby at one of the perimeter tables, reloading his plate with snacks. A few yards away, Peter non-Parker was doing the same thing.

Tony planted himself equidistant from the two, and said loudly, "Oh, Peter?"

"Yeah?" they both said. Then they looked at each other. "Oh." Then: "_Oh_."

"Good," Tony said. "I'll let you take it from there." And he sauntered away.

Peter not-Parker looked up at May in trepidation. "I'm about to get yelled at again, huh."

Peter Parker said, "Yeah, probably."

"That was a little unkind," Steve said, falling in next to Tony.

"Hey, actions have consequences. Nature of the universe." Tony paused, and sent him a quick sidelong glance. "On a thematically not unrelated topic: you know I've still got the old shield kicking around somewhere, right? The original? If you wanted to switch back…" He scratched the back of his head. "I mean, it might take me a while to dig it up from wherever I stashed it, but—"

"No, that's okay," Steve said quickly. "I appreciate the thought. Really, I do. But it's not necessary."

Tony scoffed. "Look, I'm not going to read anything into it. The new one's a cute souvenir, but the original was better made and you've had it longer. It's fine."

"Thank you, Tony," Steve said, "but I like the new one better."

(Maybe he did the Captain America face. Just a little.)

Tony rolled his eyes heavily. "You and Kel both — no concept of subtext whatsoever. Fine, then can I at least update the paint job?" He gestured at the streamers. "After all, you have an image to maintain."

"Sure. That'd be great."

They'd drifted their way to the back of the rec hall, where a flight of stairs led up to the second level. Steve took a moment to survey the crowd. Peter non-Parker had apparently survived his conversation with May reasonably unscathed. Now he was at the center of a growing audience that included Avengers and friends alike, chatting away at top speed and looking happy as a clam. There were two other main groups at the moment: the one with Pepper and Bruce was back in the corner, and the other was more spread out in the center of the floor. If Steve focused, he could pick out individual conversations. But he preferred to simply let the cheerful atmosphere flow over him.

"Look at us, all amicable," Tony said, and gave a quiet chuckle. "Come a long way."

"Yes, we have."

"Seriously, you did good with this," he said, and clapped Steve on the arm. "Now go enjoy it."

The next person Steve caught up with was Sam. They'd spoken only briefly when Sam had gotten back, since Steve had been busy setting up for the party.

"How was your trip?" Steve asked after they'd greeted each other again.

"The change of scenery felt pretty damned good," Sam replied. "Just you wait — when it's your turn, you'll see what I mean."

"I'm sure I will," he said. "Did you go anywhere special?"

"Pennsylvania, to visit my sister. Actually, I'm a little surprised I made it back alive. My nephew Charlie has this pet lizard. Some kind of monitor. Two years ago it was kind of cute, but the damned thing _grew_. Now it's big enough to eat my face. I don't know what the hell Rue was thinking."

Steve grinned. "Must have brought back some memories."

"Yeah, you could say that."

"I hope I didn't cut your vacation short. I thought about postponing the party another week."

"Nah, this was just about right," Sam said. "After eighteen months of being grounded, I'm ready to get back into it. See how this Avengers thing is supposed to work now." His head tilted slightly as he studied Steve's expression. "How are you holding up?"

"I'm anxious for my own sentence to be up, of course," Steve said. "But honestly? I'm doing good."

Sam studied him with narrowed eyes. "You know, you actually look it, too. Still running up Tony's long-distance bill?"

He grinned. "Yeah, Bucky and I talk once or twice a week. He's spending a lot of time at the Asgardian settlement these days, helping them build houses. Seeing him on a screen isn't the same as being there with him, but… I'll take it."

Their slow stroll had brought them into the vicinity of the group that included Bruce, Pepper and Rhodey. Kel had joined them some time earlier, and seemed to be wrapping up a lengthy saga.

"...formalized the alliance between Wyn verak Lis veresh Tor, shorath j'Brenithi, and Gri verak Nal veresh Cro, hireth j'Brenithi," she said. "Four minor _hirethe_ gave their loyalty to our clan over the next twenty-five years, and it positioned Tor to claim the title of _hireth_ after Gri. Still, a century later, Ral verak Shi, hireth j'Brenithi, led the three new clans formed after the War of the Kenetriach to give loyalty to Bri instead of Tor. It means Bri almost certainly will follow Kith as _ti-hireth_. Unlikely now that Tor will ever get a chance at the title."

"So the answer," Rhodey said after a moment, "is 'no'."

"I begin to forget the question," Kel said. "But I think so, yes." She turned to Bruce. "My father is centuries older than I am. Much stronger. And still, to stop you took everything he had. Bri or Kith could have done it. Maybe one or two more of the older _hirethe_. Certainly no one else there." She gave him a reassuring smile. "Don't worry. You could still kill me very easily."

Bruce winced. "Thanks. I guess."

Rhodey asked, "You were sitting right next to the _hirethe_ that night. Could you tell whether they were expecting an attack?"

Kel tended to be blunt in her speech, and she didn't take offense when people spoke to her likewise. "You mean, did they arrange it?" she said. "No, I couldn't tell. What I sense is much more physical sensation than emotion. Did they startle? No. But a _hireth_ is expected to control these responses. It means nothing."

Rhodey didn't look all that satisfied, but he gave her a nod and subsided.

It was a natural breaking point, and the group began to drift apart. Sam moved off to chat with Jean and Rhodes, while Bruce and Kel began a discussion of Brenith biology. That left Steve alone with Pepper.

"Hello, Steve," she said.

The last time they'd talked, they hadn't been on a first-name basis.

"Pepper," he responded.

"I never had the chance to thank you," she said. "For everything you did to bring the abductees home."

"That was the mission."

"I think it was more than that." She glanced over at Tony, who was talking to Alisha on the other side of the room. "No matter how much Tony tells me about those twenty months, it'll never be the same as having been there. That's always going to be difficult for me. I know that I don't understand everything that happened between the two of you. But I also know that he's changed, and the way he talks about the team has changed. I think you had a lot to do with that. So — thank you. For helping to bring him back to me."

She offered her hand.

Steve's face had gone flaming hot. He grasped her hand and hoped he didn't look too obviously poleaxed.

"Thank you," he said. "Or — you're welcome. Um." (Okay, so much for _that_.) "It wasn't easy to get to where we are now. At all. But I'm proud of what we managed to build between us, and I hope Tony is, too."

Luckily, Pepper moved on before Steve could spontaneously combust. The silly grin that had been lurking off and on all day reasserted its claim on his face. He was okay with that.

For the next hour or so, he circulated through the room. Groups formed up, traded stories and jokes, merged and redivided. Steve had wondered if he would need to provide more forms of entertainment, but so far everyone seemed to be managing just fine.

The flow of the crowd eventually brought him back to the foot of the stairs. This time, Steve climbed to the second level and leaned his arms on the balcony railing. Over to the right, Scott had started doing sleight-of-hand tricks. Among the people watching him were Vision, Wanda and Kiran, who seemed like the three least likely to be impressed by those kinds of illusions. They all seemed to be enjoying themselves, though. Nearby, May and Happy were deep in conversation. Peter stood by looking vaguely traumatized until Jean gathered him up and brought him to join a circle with Pepper, Bruce and Natasha. In one of the seating areas, a group chatting in sign included Tony, Sam, Rhodey and Aaron.

Unexpected motion caught Steve's eye. At the far end of the room, the door nudged open. He tensed — no one else was supposed to be coming, but—

"What was the one house rule?" Tony demanded as he strode over to intercept the intruder. "No horses indoors! George? George! Don't… don't you _dare_ lick those canapés, you appalling, ill-mannered— _what_ did I just say? Oh, just _take_ it, already. Tomorrow morning I am selling you to the nearest glue factory."

George flapped his wings cheerfully and got to work on the next plateful.

"I still don't understand how that's a horse," Bruce said.

"Are you sure you don't want him?"

"Pretty sure, yeah."

Happy, ever on duty, hurried over to back Tony up. Tony took his usual tactic of engaging George in vigorous debate. Happy closed in enough to get a hand on George's flank, and promptly took a wing to the face.

As the host, Steve supposed that he should help with this… but it was a lot more fun to watch. Besides, he was about to have company.

"I heard you on the sixth step," he said.

"Yes." Kel joined him at the rail. "Harder to surprise you now."

Below them, a few more people were pitching in on the George situation. George seemed thrilled with all the attention, and cheerfully flicked his tongue at every nose that came in range.

Steve shifted his attention to Kel. She was watching the goings-on with a faint smile that didn't seem to reach her eyes.

"You okay?" he asked.

Kel shrugged. "It becomes a lot, sometimes." She tapped the base of her ear. "Not a bad sensation. People are happy. Just… a lot."

He nodded. "I'm glad you came, because I think I owe you an apology. That day after the First Contact Ceremony, we grilled you pretty hard. I'm sorry — you haven't done anything to deserve our mistrust."

"You protect your planet," Kel said. "I understand."

"Still, it was no way to treat a friend."

"You carry no debt. I didn't… 'take it personally'. Is this the phrase?"

"Yes, that's right."

"Good. I work… no." Her lips moved silently. "I 'am working' on my… 'English'. Yes?"

"Very good," Steve said. "I suppose the _hirethe_ use translators?"

"Yes. Safer, since they need to be very correct. The things I say don't matter."

Her tone had been uncharacteristically bitter, and Steve frowned in concern.

"Don't matter to who?" he asked.

Kel pressed her lips together, and Steve got the sense that she was doing some quick internal editing.

"What I mean is, the _hirethe_ speak for their clans," she said after a moment. "I speak for no one. Like that one said—" her gesture indicated Scott "—I go on television and stand there to look human for you. Good at this, I suppose. But I'm not permitted to help when there are important talks or negotiations. It… is annoying, sometimes." A sharp dismissive gesture ended the topic. "Anyway. I would ask how you are, but I can already tell." This time her smile was a lot more genuine. "It was so long since we saw each other. You started to be happy then, I think. Got a lot better at it now."

He had to chuckle. "I can't argue with that. The Avengers are on their way back to being a legitimate organization, and that's… just fantastic. For my team not to have to live on the run. The Sokovia Accords are still a work in progress — a lot of things got sidelined when your people showed up — but we're getting there."

"I'm glad," she said. "And you and Tony seem fine."

"Yeah. We know not to take it for granted now. We still get on each other's nerves sometimes, but we work things out before they get serious."

Tony, Peter and Happy had finally managed to corral George and eject him from the party. Tony came stomping back in, greatly overplaying his annoyance as usual, and went back to trying to pitch Bruce on horse ownership.

This seemed like a good time to set the next phase of his plan into motion. Steve pulled out his phone and opened the app that interfaced with the AV system. (Sometimes living in the future was so great.) He'd left the background music to the vagaries of the internet, but this list he'd put together himself.

Damn right it was big band-era swing. Steve dialed up the volume.

"Gee, I wonder who picked the music?" Tony asked loudly.

Steve called back, "When you throw the party, you can decide what we dance to."

There was plenty of space on the floor. Peter and Aaron were the first ones to pair up. Then Pepper took Tony by the hand. More couples formed up and joined them.

Kel watched the proceedings intently.

"This," she said dubiously after a long stretch of silent observation, "is 'to dance', yes?"

"Don't tell me they don't have dancing on your planet."

"Sort of, yes. Similar idea. But done differently."

Steve asked, "Are weapons involved?"

"Not everything we do is about combat."

He waited.

Kel sighed and rolled her eyes. "Yes, sometimes," she said, and flicked her fingers. "Fine. But closer to what I mean is…" She frowned in concentration as she studied the dancers below. "I think each pair moves separately. They cooperate with each other, each two, but not the group together. Is it right?"

"More or less."

"For us, this misses the point to share the space together. All can sense each other, so part of the fun, the game, is to move together. To… create the pattern together." Kel gave a huff of rueful laughter. "I spend so much time with humans. I think I understand you. And then something happens — even a tiny thing — and I remember how different we are." Her hand made chopping gestures at different angles. "You must have so many _walls_ in your mind. Hard for me to imagine."

The opening number was winding down. Folks were smiling and laughing. A few were switching partners in anticipation of the next song. When Steve looked at them, he didn't see walls.

"I guess it would seem that way, from your perspective. But we find ways to manage." He offered his hand, palm down. "Do you want to dance?"

"I don't know how," Kel said.

"You don't have to. Just follow my lead." He paused, just for a moment, before adding, "For a change."

Steve grinned at her glare, which wasn't at all serious. She clasped his hand.

Kel really didn't know how to dance. But the same empathic sense that let her anticipate her opponent's every move in combat gave her incredible physical intuition. She caught the rhythm and the bounce almost instantly. Steve took a few measures to let her get the hang of the basic steps, and to make sure he'd adjusted to her missing hand. Then he sent her out into a spin, and was rewarded with a joyful peal of laughter.

Tony and Jean came alongside them as the song ended. Kel picked up on this cue as readily as she had all the others, and transferred from Steve to Tony. Steve found himself hand in hand with Jean.

"Do you want to lead?" he asked her. "For old time's sake?"

Her eyes crinkled with pleasure. "Who am I to turn down a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity? Especially when it arises twice."

And off they went.

It was a fantastic night. Steve didn't think he'd had as much fun since before he'd come out of the ice. This was… God, maybe this was what it was like. Being okay, being happy. Surrounded by his friends. His family.

But then there came a point when Tony broke away from the group. His glasses were on; Steve could just barely hear him talking to FRIDAY. After a moment, he turned to Steve and made a slashing motion across his throat.

With a murmured apology to Alisha, Steve stepped off the floor as well and shut down the music.

"Sorry to break up the party, folks," Tony announced, "but most if not all of us need to see this. FRIDAY, fire up the main display."

On the near wall above the drinks table, a screen lit up to show a news broadcast in progress. The sound came on at the same time. Everyone turned to watch.

The report was coming in from Germany. A military facility, part of the US Army Garrison Stuttgart, had come under some form of attack. The press weren't being permitted on the premises, but the parade of emergency vehicles still flowing past told the story just as well.

More details emerged. The attack had been carried out by a small number of assailants — two or three, according to preliminary reports. They'd breached base security and broken into an undisclosed building, then punched their way out again and somehow evaded pursuit.

"Although details are sketchy at this time," the correspondent said, "multiple eye-witnesses have claimed that the attackers possessed physical enhancements, sustaining several gunshot wounds with no apparent effect. We don't yet know the specific facility that was targeted by the attack, what the objective was, or how many fatalities occurred. The attackers are still at large, and should be considered armed and extremely dangerous."

_Dammit_. Steve glanced around at the faces of the other Avengers in the crowd, and he was sure their expressions mirrored his own. A terrorist attack on a military facility was already a crisis situation. An attack carried out by enhanced personnel could provoke widespread panic.

Sam said, "Looks like we're back on the clock."


	3. Chapter 3

In spite of having only one prior example to work from, Natasha was confident in her assessment that no meeting that began with Secretary Ross arriving at the compound in a snit could ever end well.

The team assembled in that self-same conference room where the last catastrophe had gotten started. Almost exactly the same group was in attendance; the only new addition was Clint, who apparently had not yet internalized the concept of retirement. Bruce was still on the premises, but he hadn't been invited and for obvious reasons was lying low. Ross and his snit arrived a few minutes later.

There was one critical difference between this snit and the last: this time, the Avengers weren't the primary target. Although Ross had tried not to say it directly, his message made it clear that he was calling the meeting because the Brenith _hirethe_ had demanded that he do so. They were due to arrive at any moment.

Natasha was still studying the nuances of the Brenith political system. There were approximately twenty clan _hirethe_ in total, and each one was the equivalent of an absolute monarch within their own territory. The clans were arranged into three alliances, of which Tor, Bri and Kith were the recognized leaders. In any military or political matter that concerned more than one clan, Kith in principle had the final say as _ti-hireth_. It wasn't clear to Natasha whether Bri and Tor together could overrule Kith, or if a shift in allegiances amongst the clans could put someone else in the top spot.

In public, Kith, Bri and Tor acted in perfect lockstep. They made all of their appearances together, and issued all of their statements together. Such a carefully curated image had to conceal a far more messy reality. If nothing else, Natasha was looking forward to observing their dynamic in person.

But first, Ross still had the floor.

"I trust it's obvious that the Avengers are on a very short leash," he said. "You absolutely do not have the authority to promise any kind of unilateral action."

"We understand," Steve said. "Can you tell us why the _hirethe_ wanted to meet us?"

Ross's lips thinned. "They didn't inform me of their agenda," he said. "Only that the matter was urgent."

"Their car just passed the gate," Tony said, and swiped the notification off his phone. "You want me to meet 'em at the door, or—"

"No, I'll do it."

Ross turned on his heel and strode out of the room.

Tony looked around the table. "So, any guesses?"

Steve said, "Given the timing, I assume this has something to do with Germany. But why that incident would concern the Brenithi, I have no idea."

They would find out in a moment. Ross returned, accompanied by their guests.

Natasha had met Tor once before, on her trip back to Earth via j'Brenn. He'd looked over the humans in much the same way that a parent might look over the earthworms that their six-year-old had just carried into the living room. He and Kel had had a conversation in z'Brel in their typical emotionless manner, then the whole group had been dismissed. In that admittedly brief encounter, Natasha had not gained any new insights beyond what she'd already gleaned from meeting Ral a few weeks prior. The _hirethe_ were excessively tall, physically powerful, and disliked having to dirty their hands with non-Brenith affairs.

She had not, for example, picked up any hints that Tor was strong enough to stop the Hulk in his tracks. Apparently it was time to pay better attention.

Ross held the door, and the three _hirethe_ filed in, each ducking low to clear the doorway. They arranged themselves at the front of the room, with Bri and Tor flanking Kith as usual. All three sets of horns were a hair's breadth from scraping the ceiling.

A few paces behind them came Kel, looking tiny next to the largest of her kind. She took up a deferential position off to the side. All four Brenithi then stared at Ross until he slunk his way over to a chair.

Six of the eight Avengers in the room had seen a _hireth_ in person before. For Steve and Vision, this was a new experience. Steve was trying to hide it, but he'd gone a little wide-eyed. Even Vision looked like he was engaged in some rapid recalculations.

Polite Brenith society dictated that adults controlled their emotions in public. But 'emotionless' was not how Natasha would describe them now. The atmosphere was one of tightly controlled anger.

"Good morning," Steve said after a stretch of awkward silence. "How can we—"

"You have the capacity to display a video file?" Kith said.

"Yes, of course."

Kith gestured to Kel, who stepped forward and slid a USB drive across the table.

"Do so."

Steve was getting a look on his face like there was a Captain America PSA about manners on the way. Tony reached across the table to retrieve the drive, and plugged it into the AV system.

Above the table, the holographic screen lit up.

The video was a recording from a security camera. It showed a large garage containing military vehicles in various states of disassembly, with US Army personnel performing maintenance. As Steve had noted, the timing made the location obvious. This was a motorpool at Stuttgart.

Ross leaned forward in his chair. "How did you get that?" he asked.

"Irrelevant, now that we have it," Kith retorted.

The recording had no sound. The group watched as the soldiers silently dropped their tools and recoiled in alarm from something offscreen. Then from the right came a security team of four men armed with M4s. Sergeants shouted and gesticulated, and the motorpool personnel evacuated along the far wall.

The security team had barely begun to sweep the space when the first man's head jerked backward and he went down. The muzzle flash had come from the bottom left of the screen, where a handgun was protruding over the hood of a Humvee. The survivors scattered for cover, but not before the gun adjusted its aim and made a second headshot.

The back of the shooter's head was just barely within the field of view of the camera. The shooter wore a ski mask or something like it; no hair or skin was visible. More to the point, their head was below the level of their gun, safely behind cover next to the side of the vehicle. The two shots they'd just made had been completely blind.

The second terrorist charged into view from the left, gun up and firing wildly. They were androgynous in a full face mask and bulky black clothes. With eerie prescience, they dodged from one side to the other in advance of the answering automatic fire. Shooter One broke cover as well, and picked off the third member of the security team.

There was a certain look that soldiers got when they determined that their final moments would be spent in the performance of their duty. The last man from the security team popped up from behind cover and took aim at Shooter Two. He only had two more rounds before his clip was exhausted, but both of them struck home. Shooter Two's body jerked from the impact and blood sprayed behind them. They seemed not to care.

Shooter Two returned fire and scored a direct hit to the chest. The bullet struck body armor and knocked the soldier back. Shooter One added a few rounds, first into the body to stun, then to the legs.

The M4 hit the ground. The soldier, still alive, slumped over a toppled tool chest.

The terrorists' faces were covered. Their hands were not. Shooter Two kicked the rifle aside, then leaned over the dying soldier and gripped his face.

The howl of agony couldn't be heard, but it could be imagined. The soldier's body spasmed and contorted. Then an arm spontaneously fractured. The natural tension of the tendons bent it grotesquely in half. More limbs followed. The body seemed to collapse in on itself. By the time Two let go, there wasn't much left of their victim but meat and bones.

Everyone who had been on Venen-ka knew exactly what they were looking at.

The two terrorists regrouped and jogged out of view of the camera. The video went black, and the projection vanished.

It was no longer a mystery why the Brenithi were involving themselves. Natasha glanced at Rhodes, who was the only one of them who'd never witnessed a Brenith in combat before. He was staring straight at Kel.

Ross was the odd man out. "Yes, the terrorists displayed enhancements," he said to Kith. "More so than we chose to release to the general public. But, if I may say so, this is an internal problem. What is your interest, exactly?"

"Kel. Enlighten the human."

"This is how we feed," she said. "More specifically, this is how a child with no training or control feeds. One that was created but never claimed."

"Created," Kith snarled, "by _you_."

"We offer you our biological data in good faith," Bri continued, "and you use it to create these _perversions_."

_Now_ Ross was up to speed. He blanched with sudden panic and said, "Kith, I can assure you that—"

"_You will correct this_!"

"I… I give you my word," Ross stammered, wide-eyed, "the US government did not, absolutely did _not_ participate in or have knowledge of any misuse of your genetic data. Whatever group is responsible, they have no connection to—"

"Your subdivisions are of no interest to us!" Kith snapped. "This outrage occurred on your planet, and we hold your planet responsible for making repairs. You will find these… _hybrids_, and any others like them. You will track them to their source and destroy them, and bring those responsible to justice."

Ross's mouth opened and closed a couple times. "We will of course make every effort," he finally managed to say, "but it could take some time."

"You have one of your months," said Kith. "If this transgression goes unpunished, we will view it as an act of war."

Kith swept out, and Bri followed. Tor remained in place. He paused for a long beat to survey the Avengers.

"My child Kel speaks of you," Tor said. "She assures us that _this_ is the group best qualified to track down and neutralize the hybrids." He made no effort to hide his skepticism. "We require that Kel be involved in every aspect of the mission. She will consult on the hybrids' capabilities and provide combat support. Most importantly, she will keep us informed of your progress. Any efforts to interfere with any of these duties will have the effect of neutralizing our patience."

Steve, who was showing an impressive amount of diplomacy under the circumstances, took his own look around the team, then responded, "That won't be a problem."

"Good." Tor tapped his neck and rhymed off a string of incomprehensible syllables in z'Brel. Kel raised her hand before her face and lowered her chin in response.

Tor strode out after his colleagues. Now it was Kel's turn to take the stage. She took a few steps forward. Her chin came up, and the deferential manner that she adopted around the _hirethe_ melted away.

"I also have conditions," she said. "Steve, will you help with this?"

"I would, of course, but I'm still on house arrest."

"Not anymore." Kel turned to Ross. "Steve travels with the team. The restrictions are removed."

His jaw dropped open. "That's—"

"Also, there is a human named Jean. She is the member of your race who knows the most about j'Brenithi. She joins the team. I hear that some in your government want to confine her. This ends. All debts are cleared."

Kel, inevitably, was not quite as intimidating as an eight-foot-six red alien. Ross was visibly bristling.

"These… requests are no simple matter," he said stiffly. "I can attempt to fast-track authorization for Avenger involvement, but the rest may not be possible. What you're asking for would require special dispensation from the Justice Department, the Department of Defense, Homeland Security. I can make some calls, but I can't guarantee—"

"The mistake," Kel said, "is to think that I _request_. I don't care about your departments. Right now I explain to you how to prevent a war — one that I _promise_ you would not enjoy. The correct response is 'thank you'." She left that hanging in the air for a long moment. "Steve, everyone. While we have the Secretary's attention. What else do you need?"

"I assume that an investigation is already underway," Steve said.

"Yes," Ross gritted. He looked like he was chewing glass. "I'll see that you're given access to their findings."

Tony asked, "Do we know what the terrorists were after? Why Stuttgart, why that garrison? What did they actually _do_ besides breach the perimeter?"

"Their objective remains unclear," Ross replied. "They did target a specific building, but it was designated as simple records storage. Archives of paper files waiting to be scanned. Nothing obvious was stolen, but a complete inventory will take time." He paused. Glanced in Kel's direction. "Naturally, you'll be informed if there are any new developments."

"How about the hybrids themselves?" Natasha asked. "There can't be too many organizations with the resources to pull off this level of genetic engineering."

"Plus they must have gotten their test subjects from somewhere," said Steve. "At least, I assume that the people we saw started off as ordinary humans."

"Not to mention the Brenith genetic material itself," Tony added. "There are only three sanctioned research facilities and they've all got serious security. Someone's asked them to recount their test tubes, right?"

"All of these avenues are under investigation," said Ross. "I'll see that you receive the reports." Another barely suppressed glare at Kel. "We're happy to be transparent."

"Good," Kel said. "Anything else?"

"Blood samples," Natasha said. "One of the terrorists was hit." She looked across the table. "I assume…"

"Yeah, good call," Tony said. "I can think of someone who'll want to take a look."

"That should be enough for a start," Steve said to Kel. "We'll know more once we've gotten up to speed on the investigation."

Kel nodded and turned back to Ross. "Then it's time for me to talk to the team alone. You can go."

Ross had no recourse and he knew it. Stiffly, he pushed back his chair, gave Kel the most miniscule of nods, and departed.

Tony leaned back in his chair. "I've heard that this Jean character is wily and elusive. I don't know how we'll ever find her in time to— oh. That was easy."

Jean walked into the room, followed by Bruce. Earlier that morning, Kel had discreetly sent word to Tony that she would be accompanying the _hirethe_, and Tony had equally discreetly brought Jean back to the compound. She and Bruce had been just down the hall, watching the proceedings on camera. Both of them looked daunted by the severity of the problem.

Speaking of which: this was not a description that Natasha accorded lightly, but Kel was a one-person army. She didn't have enhanced strength, but her reflexes, endurance, regenerative abilities and empathic sense more than made up for it — combined, of course, with a lifetime of training in exactly how to use those powers to best effect. Without her help, the team could never have made it through the Venen-ka war.

The prospect of facing multiple copies of her did not appeal.

"Well," Steve said. "At least we know what we're up against. Obviously we'll be better positioned to discuss our next steps once we've received those reports. In the meantime, Kel, is there anything else you can tell us about these hybrids? It seems like their physical capabilities are similar to yours."

Clint kicked back and folded his hands behind his head. "There's at least one difference," he said. "I don't remember you being such a messy eater."

Kel turned on him with a look of such cold rage that Natasha found herself calculating the optimum point of interception across the conference table.

But then she closed her eyes for a moment, and it was gone.

"You don't understand what you see," she said. It was clearly a reminder to herself. "What that one did… they have the strength of an _eneth_, at least, but no control. _None_. It…" Her jaw muscles tensed. "Some of you think that our childhoods are too difficult. But there are reasons." Kel held up her hand and rubbed her fingers together. "Do you understand that I could stop your heart with just a touch? It takes almost no time. Adult j'Brenithi have defenses, but other children don't. Can you imagine? We teach mental and physical discipline from a very early age to make sure that our children don't kill each other. So to see _that_, to see one with the size and strength of an adult that feeds that way, mindlessly… I don't have the _words_ for how wrong it is." Kel drew a slow breath. "The _hirethe_ aren't the only ones who are angry. I'm _furious_ that this was done."

After a long pause, Clint said quietly. "Okay. I stepped in it there. Sorry."

Kel gave him a nod.

Jean said, "My impression from the video and the conversation is that these hybrids are humans who were genetically modified. Is that the consensus?"

This was Bruce's wheelhouse. "Given that Brenith tissues have been available on Earth for less than a year? Yes, that's the only thing that makes sense. Creating the genetic hybridization would be touchy enough—" he glanced Kel's way "—never mind introducing all the problems of hyper-accelerated growth."

"Agree," said Kel. "And this is another problem. Our empathic abilities emerge in late childhood. By human years, around thirteen or fourteen. Very weak at first. Strengthen over several years. There is a lot of new information to process, but it happens slowly, at an age when the brain is still flexible, yes? To have the empathic sense begin with the strength of an adult, all at once… I don't know what it would do to a mind."

"Could we use that?" Natasha asked. "Can the hybrids be confused or distracted?"

Kel grimaced. "Possible. But I think it also means that the kill instinct is much closer to the surface. If we overwhelm to distract from the mission, makes them more likely to destroy anyone in their way."

"I agree," Wanda said quietly. "To have abilities and perceptions suddenly open up in your mind… once you get a taste, you don't want to stop. It's much easier to abandon yourself to those new powers than it is to rein them in. These hybrids are incredibly dangerous, especially if they're cornered."

"We're going to need practical exercises as well as briefings," Natasha said to Kel. "I expect that overcoming your bag of tricks will involve a learning curve."

"Good idea," Steve said. "But we should get our new teammate settled in first."

Jean groaned quietly and covered her eyes with one hand. "When I say that I cannot believe how ridiculous my life is becoming, I need you to understand that my life was already quite ridiculous before."

"Yep, we're sucking you into our degenerate Avenger lifestyle," Tony said. "You're screwed."

"Clint and I will give Jean the tour," Natasha said. "Then we can chat about some training drills."

* * *

Most of the construction efforts in New Asgard were focused on individual residences, and on necessary features like storage for food and construction supplies, and stables and pens for the livestock that Wakanda was holding for them. Their town would surely need a commercial sector eventually — taverns and shops and so forth — but those things could wait until Thor had a better plan (or indeed any plan) for how New Asgard would participate in Earth's economy.

There was one construction project, however, that was prioritized even though it wasn't an immediate necessity, and that was the feasting hall. The building was bare and unfinished as yet. Portions of the walls and much of the roof were missing, covered only by tarp. The sunlight that shone through the windows was augmented by simple electric lights. Even so, the feasting hall had rapidly become Thor's favorite location in the settlement, because it allowed the evening meal to become a communal affair — a celebration of the day's achievements. Just as he had each evening that week, Thor sat amongst his people and basked in the sounds of cheerful conversation.

At the far end of the hall, heads suddenly began to turn. The reaction traveled through the room like a wave as the source approached.

Loki came strolling down the center aisle with his hands draped behind his back and a self-satisfied smile on his face. He sobered, though, when he reached the front row of tables, and fixed his gaze on Valkyrie.

"Don't," he said to her. "_Don't_."

She paused mid-bite. "Don't what?"

"You know what."

She gestured with the drumstick. "What's wrong with you? I'm not doing anything."

"Good."

He turned back to Thor. Immediately a pebble flew through his forehead — or rather, his mirage's forehead — and dropped to the floor with a faint _plonk_.

Loki gave a growl of frustration and vanished.

From the next row, Bucky said, "Five points."

"Four points!" Valkyrie retorted.

"Bonus point for storming off."

"He couldn't storm off. He wasn't here in the first place."

"Making his image storm off still counts as storming off."

"It didn't storm off, it vanished!"

"It stormed off!"

Valkyrie turned to Thor. "Hey, Your Majesty, we need a ruling here. Storming off, yes or no?"

They were, perhaps, not the affairs of state over which Odin had presided, but they were important even so. The people around him stilled as they awaited his pronouncement.

Thor steepled his fingers. "As an expert in storms of all kinds, I think I must agree with Valkyrie. Causing an image to vanish… it really doesn't constitute a storm."

"_Hah_!" Valkyrie cried, and slapped the table.

"Now you're encouraging this?"

Thor turned quickly in his chair. "Loki! I didn't see you there."

"Of course not, since—" Loki paused to snatch out of the air the pebble that Valkyrie threw at him. "Since everywhere I go, _this_ happens!"

"It's all in good fun," Thor said. "Don't you remember fun? You used to get up to all sorts of fun."

"Like winding that big green guy up and dropping him on a crowded theater," Bucky said. "Fun, right?"

"I had nothing to do with that!" Loki snapped. "And _why_ is this mortal always at our table?"

"Hey, we're all mortal, pal."

Thor asked, "What are you doing out of your escape pod, anyway?"

Loki dismissed Bucky with a roll of his eyes. "I thought you might be interested to know that the humans are all terribly upset," he said to Thor. "It seems that one of their army strongholds was attacked. They claim that the attackers had 'enhanced abilities'. Which means very little, of course, when measured against a Midgardian. Even so, it sounded like the sort of thing your old friends the Avengers would become involved in."

He was probably right about that. Earth didn't only face threats from other planets. With alarming frequency, they also managed to manufacture their own. If there was something out of the ordinary in this incident, then surely the Avengers would be summoned in response.

Once, Thor would have joined them without hesitation. The possibility tantalized. But he couldn't abandon his responsibilities.

"Whatever the problem is, I'm sure they can handle it," he said, and returned to his meal.

Later, however, he made some inquiries.

"I am monitoring the situation closely," T'Challa said. "Avenger involvement has been formally requested and is being fast-tracked through the UN committee."

"And the nature of the threat?"

"Not entirely clear. Reports indicate that at least one of the attackers was resistant to gunfire. How this arose, or what other abilities they might have, I don't yet know." T'Challa paused, and his eyes narrowed slightly. "Do you intend to join the Avengers?"

With one choice, Thor abandoned his friends; with the other, he abandoned his people. He was doing the right thing, he knew, but still it pained.

"No," he said. "My work is here. But I would be most grateful if you could pass on any information you receive."

"Of course."

The screen went black.

Thor had heard his cabin door open moments earlier, so he wasn't surprised at the voice.

"I'd have thought you would leap at the chance to get out of this place," Loki said.

"You're very eager to be rid of me." Thor turned to face his brother, and folded his arms. "What are you up to?"

But this seemed to strike the wrong note.

"_Nothing_," Loki spat. "I am up to _nothing_. Every day, I sit in my chambers—"

"Escape pod."

"—and watch _Midgardian television_, because if I dare to venture outside, _rocks_ are thrown at me!"

"Pebbles," Thor said. "Which reminds me—"

"_Don't_—"

The drinking cup was still on the floor by the cot. Thor picked it up and tossed it Loki's way. Loki caught it in one hand and crushed it to shards.

"Yes, I'm here!" he snapped, and tossed the remains of the cup to the ground. "I'm _always_ here! Isn't that what…" He trailed off with a sigh. "I don't know what you want."

_What do I want? A home. To see my mother again. My father. A heritage not built on deception and violence. To have one sibling — just one — who never tried to kill me._

"Almost all of the things that I want no longer exist," Thor said. He gestured beyond them toward the settlement. "What I have left is… this. The work. What do _you_ want, Loki?"

Loki didn't answer. "Perhaps I should have stayed on Ria with the rock and the insect," he said instead.

"Perhaps," Thor said. "Korg did mention needing more people to hand out his pamphlets." When Loki didn't respond, he added, "Or you could help us. There are still rocks to carry and nails to hammer."

This elicited a scornful look. "Do I _look_ like a carpenter to you?"

"Well, not in that clothing, no," said Thor. "I realize it's not the answer you want, but I have nothing more."

Loki gave a lengthy sigh. Then his outfit blurred. His habitual layers of black leather vanished, leaving him in a green tunic and lightweight trousers.

His finger came up in warning. "But if those two keep throwing rocks at me…"

"Pebbles," Thor said again. "I'll try to get the game to stop. Though it might be difficult to convince Valkyrie now that Bucky is ahead by three points, so—"

"_Thor_."

He grinned. "I'll do my best, brother."

* * *

Jean held up to the tour pretty well, all things considered. She'd already seen the residence. Now it was time for the fun stuff: the Quinjet hangar, some of the labs and the bigger training spaces, and finally the armory.

Natasha enjoyed that particular room. It looked like Jean would need some time to get used to it. She slowly came wandering back down the aisle to where Natasha and Clint were waiting, and took a moment to assemble her thoughts.

"Speaking as someone who spends most of her time as a private citizen," she said, "I have to ask, was it really so shocking to learn that much of the world wants you bound by some manner of regulations?"

Clint glared in indignation. "Hey, we don't go on rampages and we're not plotting to overthrow the government."

"Well," Natasha said, "in fairness, there was that time when Steve, Sam and I _did_ overthrow a significant—"

"Oh, _one_ goddamned time, and they were fuckin' Hydra! What were you supposed to do?"

Jean waited silently with eyebrows arched.

"Yeah, all right," Clint sighed. "But Stark in his armor could do more damage than everything in this room put together."

"True, and that's also something I think about periodically."

"And now you've joined us," said Natasha "Welcome to the Dark Side."

Jean looked back over her shoulder. The small arms section was immediately behind her; rifles and shotguns were further back. Stingers, electrified batons and assorted grenades were down the aisle to the right, while Clint's bows and arrows and Natasha's knife collection were on the left.

"All right," Jean said. "What do I do?"

"Well, we need to get you kitted out," Clint said, "and a spear isn't gonna cut it this time. How are you on firearms?"

"Acceptable."

"Let's find out."

Together, they strolled back up the aisle.

"You might want to stay away from the fancy stuff if you haven't tried it before," said Clint, and gestured to a likely rack of handguns. "We'll start semi-auto. What do you use, thirty-eight? Nine mil?"

"I've handled both, but nine, for preference."

Clint picked out a Glock, and they headed next door to the firing range. He set the gun and a full clip on the bench, then the three of them donned their glasses and earmuffs. Downrange was a silhouette target.

"When you're ready."

Jean loaded the clip and chambered a round with practiced ease. She paused a moment, and Natasha watched her take a breath. Then the gun came up and she fired a perfect double-tap, center of mass. Another to the head. Back to the center of the target, where she emptied the clip. The grouping that resulted was professional quality.

Jean ejected the empty clip and set the weapon down. The three of them pushed back their earmuffs.

"Okay," Clint said after a pause. "Who the hell are you?"

"Oh dear," said Jean. "Natasha, it seems that Clint has been hit on the head again."

"That does happen with alarming frequency."

"Seriously, Boss-Lady," Clint said. "That's not a weekend a month at the firing range. That's dedication. So what's your deal?"

"I'm a perfectionist."

"Jean."

She sighed and took a few steps away from the bench. Her expression took on a melancholy cast.

"I was ten years older than my brother," Jean said. "As such, I was terribly offended the day he outgrew me. It kicked off a competitive streak that never quite wore off. To our family's collective surprise, he enrolled in Army ROTC, and went on to make a career out of… this sort of thing." She waved her hand at the target. "Over time, he became a very good shot. I fear he never quite forgave me for being slightly better."

"Lotta past tense there," Clint noted.

Jean nodded. "He died some years ago."

"Killed in action?"

"Yes."

"Sorry."

"So am I," said Jean. "In any event, I've trained with a variety of the sorts of handguns, shotguns, and rifles that a civilian can lay hands on. Please don't hand me anything fully automatic — the results would embarrass us all."

"Fair enough," Clint said. "You ever shoot anything besides a paper target?"

"Yes."

"Kill it?"

"It was Kel," Jean said. "She found it funny."

Clint looked at Natasha, who said, "It's a start."

* * *

Until the various police and intelligence reports were transferred over, there was only so much that any of them could do. Jean was off having quality time with Natasha, Clint and the armory, and the rest of the team was left to their own devices. Steve and Kel had stayed with Bruce to chat about Brenith biochemistry. A countermeasure that could neutralize the hybrids' abilities would be a terrific help. Tony should have probably gone with them, but there was another team member he wanted to check in with first.

Rhodey finally turned up in one of the offices. He was leaning back in the desk chair with a tablet in his hands. A quick glance at the text through the glass confirmed that it was Vision's original report from Venen-ka.

"Hey," Tony said, and perched on the desk. "How's it going?"

"Just reminding myself of what one of these hybrids can do," he said. "It was a hell of a war you fought. If your buddy there had been on the other side of it…"

"_God_," Tony groaned. "I don't even want to think about it. We would have been screwed."

"Yeah."

"Different environment, though. Kel had advantages over there that the hybrids won't have on Earth. They're strongest against biological systems, so we need to meet them with tech."

"Sounds about right," Rhodey said. "You've got your work cut out for you."

Tony crossed his arms. "What's with this 'you' business? Aren't you getting in on this?"

"We'll see what the orders are when they come through," he said. "But in any event, do me a favor, okay? You're going to run through some training exercises with her and that's fine, but don't show her everything."

"Well, you're a couple years too late on that one. The first thing they did when you got to the labor camp was strip your clothes, so she's already seen—"

"_Tony_. I'm serious. Hold something back."

Tony had really hoped that he'd been mentally exaggerating the magnitude of the problem, but no, apparently his initial estimate had been pretty much bang on. At the party, Rhodey and Jean had hit it off almost immediately. Rhodey and Kel had been the exact opposite. The temperature dropped ten degrees any time the two of them were in proximity, and Rhodey almost never said her name.

"Come on, Sour Patch," he said. "What is it with the two of you?"

"I don't know," Rhodey retorted. "Maybe it has something to do with the time she confessed to participating in a genocide. Remember that?"

Aw, fuck. Tony knew, he _knew_ that they were getting into some seriously dicy territory, but he couldn't just let that stand unchallenged. "It's… you can't just… it's a different culture."

"_Bullshit_."

"_No_, not bullshit!" he snapped. "The only kind of life they value is their own — everyone else is cattle. When you're raised like _that_, up to the eyeballs in it, trained to fight for the glory of the _whatever_-the-fuck from the moment you can walk… Should an ethical sapient being be able to see that they're in the wrong? _Yes_, but maybe it takes a minute!"

"'Just following orders' has never once in history been a good enough excuse," Rhodey countered. "I don't care what year it was, I don't care what planet it was. Some orders you don't follow."

Feeling mealymouthed and hating it, Tony said, "We know she helped win the war. We don't know that she killed anyone afterward."

"Okay. You want to ask her?"

"Not particularly."

"Any other questions?"

"Nope," Tony said as his face burned. "Think that covered it."

Rhodey gave a sigh and rubbed his eyes. "Look, I know you went through a lot over there, and she's important to you," he said. "I get that. I'm just worried that those experiences will keep you from seeing a threat until it's too late."

Tony stared at the ground and tried to figure out what the fuck he was even arguing. The Casid story had been horrific. No question there. Kith had ordered close to twenty percent of a population wiped out for the offense of staging a rebellion, and no, it wasn't at all clear how active a role Kel had played in the slaughter. (She would have just lost her hand in the war. Hopefully she'd been out of active service by then. But he didn't know for sure.)

And the truly damning part was that he couldn't definitively state that she _wasn't_ capable of following that order, because he'd seen her kill hundreds of enemy soldiers on Venen-ka without blinking an eye.

Maybe it was all a bit too much to ask Rhodey to forgive, and that was just the way things had to be. But he had to make one more attempt at explaining how he reconciled the friend and the monster.

"When we were over there, it was nine against an army," Tony said. "Maybe you heard that story."

"Yeah, it came up."

"How do you think we won? It sure as hell wasn't by playing fair. We used minefields. Telepathy. Where do the Geneva Conventions stand on forcibly altering memories? Maybe they haven't caught up with that one yet. We used chemical weapons — god, we took out a _lot_ of them that way. Hundreds. And when we cleared out an enemy stronghold, we didn't stop to check who was wearing a uniform and who wasn't. We did some damned ugly things. _All_ of us."

"You were fighting back against enslavement," Rhodey replied. "Which is exactly what those Casid guys were doing when they were massacred. There's no comparison."

"Okay, but my point is…" Tony tried to marshal his racing thoughts into something resembling an argument. "My point is that you have a point. When Kel takes the brakes off, she's terrifying. Because that's what she was built to be. That capacity for violence is a part of her. Under the skin. But she's trying to do better. To take what she was given and do something worthwhile with it. And I _get_ that. I believe it. You know?"

It took a minute, but finally Rhodey flashed him a quick smile. "Yeah. I know. But _my_ point is, she could also be playing on that. She knows where all your buttons are. I don't trust her bosses, and I don't trust this whole scenario. Not yet. That's why I'm asking you to hold something back. Will you at least think about it?"

Agreement felt like betrayal. But Rhodes had earned his trust every bit as much as Kel had.

"I hear you," Tony said. "I'll watch my back."

They both looked over at the approaching footsteps, which turned out to belong to Steve.

"Hey, Tony, Rhodey," he said. His brow furrowed as he picked up on the tension. "Everything all right?"

"Yeah, we're good," said Rhodey. "Just running some scenarios. What's up?"

"The _hirethe_ have lit a fire under someone," Steve said. "I've already received forensics reports and security camera footage from Stuttgart. Bruce is analyzing the lab results, and the rest of us should review the video. Anything we can learn about the way these guys operate could be useful."

"It'll only be useful in theory if we can't figure out where they're going next," Tony said. "Any indications yet of what they were after?"

Steve shook his head. "If they stole something, either no one knows what it is yet, or no one wants to admit it. We should have travel authorization by tomorrow. We'll head out there ourselves if no one's making any progress." He paused, and an amused smile appeared on his face. "In the meantime, Kel has an interesting idea for a training exercise."


	4. Chapter 4

Tony and Rhodey followed Steve back to the conference room, picking up Sam en route. They found Bruce and Kel in mid-discussion.

"Which is why," Bruce was saying, "if I could just get a sample of blood from you…"

"I think how I was made and how they were made were completely different," Kel said.

"Yes, but the outcomes were remarkably similar — on a purely biological level, I mean," he added in the face of her darkening expression. "I'd be very interested to see just how far the similarities extend. Whether the human and Brenith components are integrated to the same degree. With any luck, that will give me some idea of how to undo what was done to these people."

"Almost always harder to undo things than it is to do them," Kel said. "But I suppose you can look."

A minute hand gesture, and the slim gold bracelet she wore emitted a stream of nanoparticles that formed near-instantaneously into a dagger. Judging by the startled reactions around him, Tony was the only one in the room who'd seen that trick before.

Kel reversed her grip and aimed the blade at her other forearm, and—

"Actually, no!" Bruce said quickly, and held out both his hands in warning. "No, I meant… in the lab. I could take a blood sample in the lab. Under sterile conditions. Not… here. On the carpet."

"Ah. All right." Kel's hand relaxed, and the dagger vanished again. "I never studied these things."

"Sure. No problem."

She nodded toward his hands. "Also, it's impolite for us to show an open palm. To say 'stop', use the edge of the hand. Palm points down."

"Oh. Sorry."

"No problem."

"Hold up a second," Sam said to Kel, and gestured toward her bracelet. "You were wearing that thing when you met the _President_."

She blinked at him. "Yes?"

"Did the Secret Service know it was a weapon?"

"Not very secret. I knew right away who all of them were."

"Yeah, kind of missing the point."

Steve said, "Sam, if a Brenith wanted to assassinate the President, do you think a knife would make a difference one way or the other?"

He sighed. "All right, probably not."

"Kel," Steve continued, "a point of human etiquette: don't wear concealed weapons when meeting with foreign heads of state."

"I'll try to remember," she said.

Tony rubbed his hands together while studiously avoiding Rhodey's eye. "Glad we got that cleared up," he said. "Now, did someone say something about forensics reports?"

They were only preliminary results, of course, but flipping through them and chatting with Bruce about next steps killed the time until the rest of the team showed up. Vision and Wanda arrived next, then finally the stragglers: Natasha, Clint, and Jean.

The three of them had been busy.

"_Jean_," Tony said, and leaned a hand on the table. "Goodness me. I'm overcome. I've gone a little weak at the knees."

Jean sighed heavily. "Tony, do endeavor not to be absurd."

She was wearing all-black tactical gear: boots, cargo trousers, body armor, canvas jacket. A handgun sat in the holster on her right thigh, and the handle of an extendable baton protruded from her boot. Tony could spot two combat knives, which meant she was probably carrying at least four. It all added up to a hell of an intimidating sight.

"Not bad," Steve said. "For a rookie."

"I will cheerfully take that over 'Boss-Lady'." Jean took a slow look around at the rest of them. "Natasha and Clint said that this was sufficiently urgent that I had no time to change clothes. And yet, I sense a certain lack of urgency."

Clint scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, that might have been overstating things a little."

"I see," she said. "So glad you're all enjoying yourselves."

"Kel and I were discussing training exercises," Steve said. "Most of us have seen her in action, but not in a modern setting. We need to get a sense for how the hybrids will use their abilities in the field."

"We don't know exactly what the hybrids will do next," Kel said, "but as a guess, let's give them something to steal." She worked her wrist out of her bracelet and set it on the desk. "You guard this, I leave, then try to get it back."

"Okay, not bad," Tony said, "though I'd be even more motivated if you put your energy shield up for grabs. It's clear that using it would constitute cheating, right?"

"Yes, I know. I'll turn it off before we start."

Natasha asked, "Energy shield?"

"Yeah. Try—"

Jean drew a knife and hurled it straight at Kel's head. A split second before it could strike its target, it zotted into nothingness in a flash of brilliant gold light.

After an aggravated sort of pause, Tony said, "For the record, I was going to say, 'Try _tossing a pencil at her _or something'."

Clint asked, "That wasn't my knife, was it?"

"No, it was mine," said Jean.

"Good. Impolite to disintegrate a guy's knife."

"Okay, and the _point_," Tony said to Kel, "is that you're turning that thing off now, right?"

Unlike the _hirethe_, who had been wearing their standard formal black clothes and gold clan crests, Kel was sporting a more relaxed look in grey trousers and a rust-colored shirt, both trimmed with gold in the typical Brenith manner. She took ahold of her collar, where there was a piece of looping gold design that did not look appreciably different from any other piece of looping gold design.

She squeezed the spot, then said, "It's off."

"We've all seen that there are two hybrids," Steve said. "Unfortunately, we don't have two Brenithi, but…"

"Natasha," Kel said. "If you want."

She nodded. "Sure, sounds like fun."

"Jean, it isn't an insult," Kel added.

"No, of course not," she said. "Natasha has many skills I lack."

"More what I mean is that I need Natasha to teach me how Avengers think, and they need you to teach them how I think."

Sam asked, "What's the time frame?"

"Twenty-four hours total," said Steve. "Both sides take twelve hours to prep before the exercise begins, then the opposing team has a twelve-hour window to execute their operation."

Vision cleared his throat delicately, which was a pleasantly useless human gesture on his part. "Out of curiosity, are _all_ of us to be included in this exercise?"

"The Avengers' names are spoken," Kel said. "Your powers are known. If the hybrids expect to face you, then they have a plan for this. For all of you." She made a show of looking him up and down, then gave a shrug and a faint smile. "I guess we find out if I have one, too."

"However," Steve added, "this particular group has been known to get a little carried away with things. So let's lay down some rules of engagement. First of all, this is not a live-fire exercise. No lethal measures."

Sam asked, "How unpleasant can the nonlethal measures get?"

Natasha produced one of her stingers out of nowhere and tossed it at Kel. Kel caught it in her hand, grimaced a little at the crackle of electricity, and dropped it.

"More unpleasant than this," she said.

Tony abruptly found himself holding the conversational ball. "Yeah, about that," he said, "I've got some ideas for how to overload even your nervous system, but you won't enjoy 'em. Are you sure…"

"It's fine, Tony," Kel said. "I trust you. Do what it takes to win."

"I'm all for keeping real bullets out of it," said Sam, "but are we simulating firearms at all?"

Natasha asked, "Can guns even slow them down?"

"Depends on the gun, the damage, how much they practiced healing these types of injuries," Kel replied. "The simplest thing is to say that a shot to the body doesn't count, a shot to the head does."

"This isn't just about the two terrorists," Steve said. "We need to know where they came from and who's giving them their orders. If at all possible, we need to take them alive."

"No guns for your side, then," Natasha said. "And I think our side can make it work without them, too. The point of the exercise is to explore the nonobvious."

"Yes, fine with me," said Kel.

Bruce raised a finger. "I assume that I'm not a part of this, right?"

"No, this is not a Code Green situation," Steve said. "You can observe, of course, but you won't be involved."

Clint said, pointedly, "Kel?"

"An interesting point." Her attention shifted to Bruce. "If this is real, the first thing I would do is give you a problem bigger than me."

Hoo boy. Kel had admitted that she couldn't stop the Hulk with her powers, but it was entirely possible that she could _start_ him, and that was a headache that none of them needed.

"And since this _isn't_ real, that's a good example of what we're _not_ doing," Tony said sternly. "Right?"

Bruce shifted uncomfortably in the face of Kel's scrutiny. "I'd clear out, but I don't think I'm allowed to leave the compound."

"Rule of engagement," Steve said. "Bruce is off-limits, and his room in the residence is out of bounds. As soon as the twenty-four hour window begins, any team that violates those boundaries automatically forfeits."

"Okay," Kel said. There was no appreciable diminishment in her eyeballing of Bruce.

Clint folded his arms. "See, I remember you giving this little speech once about how the word 'okay' doesn't mean anything."

"It loses the game. I heard."

"Carried away with things?" Sam muttered. "This team? _No_."

"Yeah, I got this," Rhodey said. "Bruce, how about you and I get out of here for a day?"

"Can I do that?" he asked.

"You'll be under official Avenger supervision. Don't sweat it. You're not going to turn green, though, right?"

"No, of course not."

"Then you're fine," said Rhodey. "We can watch the footage afterward. You're going to record this, right?"

"Sure," Steve said. "But you don't want to take part?"

"Show me hybrids who can fly. Then maybe I'll get interested."

Kel's competitive streak had shitty timing. This sudden foray into psychological warfare was _not_ helping with the Rhodes situation. Unfortunately, it was very clear which side Tony needed to take.

"Yeah, Steve, Rhodey's got a point," he said. "Putting more than one suit in play would just make it unsporting."

"Go ahead, pack a bag, whatever you need," Rhodey said to Bruce. "I'll meet you at the garage."

"Thanks," Bruce said. To the rest of them, he added, "Have fun. I'm sure this isn't quite as terrible of an idea as it sounds."

Once they were gone, Natasha said, "Whoever's behind these attacks has to be well funded. We can expect the hybrids to have weapons and tech as well as their abilities. So, Steve, we get an hour to pick through inventory before we clear out?"

"Half an hour," Steve countered. "Don't push it, Romanoff."

Kel started to follow Natasha out of the room. But as she passed Tony, she paused, and extended her hand.

"Good luck," she said.

Right. A nice, friendly, sportsmanlike, _human_ gesture. One involving those naughty palms, no less.

Tony pointed at her hand from a safe distance and said, "That's a trap."

"Yes."

"Nice try. Clock's ticking."

* * *

The armory was good for impressing new recruits, but guns weren't the be-all, end-all. Natasha led Kel to the next building over, where communications gear and other tech was stored. The compound had security systems that were going to take some amount of work to circumvent, plus she had every intention of jamming the other team's comms channels.

(There was a rule of engagement to be negotiated there, actually: assuming the hybrids' empathic powers worked the same way Kel's did, they had a line of communication that couldn't be blocked. For the purposes of the simulation, then, it seemed only fair that Natasha and Kel's comms were off limits.)

"They move the bracelet," Kel said. She was staring through the near wall with a distant expression.

"I assume you can keep track of it?"

"Yes. Not a problem."

"Nice work, by the way, taking Rhodes off the field," Natasha said. "Though you might want to smooth things over with Bruce later. We generally try not to upset him too much."

"I hoped it would be Vision," Kel replied. "But to lose one of the armor suits isn't so bad." She looked around the room, where Natasha's tools of the trade were laid out on neatly labeled shelves. "Not much time to take weapons, and I don't know much about your technology. I have some ideas for how to design an attack, but probably you're better at this than I am."

"I can handle the technical side," said Natasha. "What would help me is if you can tell me as much as possible about how your powers work."

Kel pursed her lips pensively. "I showed Sam what it's like, once," she said, and tapped the base of her ear. "I think I could do a better job this time. If you want."

Oh, intriguing. Observation was useful enough, but it couldn't ever compare with direct experience. (A small part of her balked at the risks of granting Kel's powers free run of her brain, but that particular ship had long since sailed.)

"Yes, I do," Natasha said.

"Here — stand the same way as me."

Kel angled Natasha so that she was facing in the direction of the residence, then came up very close behind her and reached forward to take her hand. Natasha closed her eyes.

And the world was flung open.

It was _huge_. It — _she_ — sprawled outward in all directions, a region of near-infinite extent. She had no idea where to feel first. Her kinesthetic sense, accustomed to dealing with a human-sized body, now had to cope with…

_no okay slow down_

_one piece at a time_

Fleeting, flitting little touches, like fireflies, like windchimes, pinging the boundaries of her perception — she could feel how long it would take _this_ part of herself to run to _that_ part of herself — and after a moment she understood that she was picking up on small wildlife in the forest, and fish in the lake.

A different piece of herself abruptly picked up speed. Rhodey and Bruce in a car, accelerating down the driveway. Hard to pick up details when they were moving so quickly; she felt the abrupt and drastic diminishment of sensation below Rhodey's spinal injury, and Bruce's wary alertness as he left the compound for the first time. (Could she see the Hulk? Beneath the sense of an ordinary body, there was—)

Too late — they were out of range.

Next, Natasha discovered the bizarre sensation of having six limbs. Phantom muscles flexed as she explored the completely different reflexes and coordination needed to manipulate the cheetah's long, lean body. Complex sensory information — scents on the air conveying data that she didn't know how to interpret — left an aftertaste in her nose and mouth. Ursula's demeanor was peaceful; her passing interest in the car was already fading.

In a different direction, Natasha found herself within a smaller, simpler body that carried a pair of wings on its back. George was eating, as usual. He had a complex, multi-chambered digestive system like a ruminant. She felt vestigial flight muscles and powerful flanks; in spite of the scales and overall lizard-like appearance, his body was warm.

Okay. She was getting the hang of this. Now zoom in.

The seven members of the opposing team had spread out around the common room. They were close by — barely fifty yards away. Put a rifle in her hands and Natasha could have shot them through the wall, one by one.

(Except the angles would be slightly off, wouldn't they? These were Kel's perceptions, not hers.)

It wasn't clear whether Natasha was guiding the tour or Kel was. In any event, her attention narrowed from the group to a single body. She could feel...

Tightness of scar tissue from the surface of Tony's chest all the way through to his heart. A blank spot center sternum. Many more scars, including a broad, tangled mess across his back. A certain stiffness in the joints, but also strength and the hum of sharp reflexes. A hard enough impact to the chest would stop the heart and she knew _just_ how to do it—

Shift. A taller body, lean dense muscle, arms crossed. This was Sam. Shadows of scars and just a taste of brittleness about the shins. Prickling/static across the lower back — a burn scar, like Natasha carried. Strong and alert, though Natasha was faster and more agile. She imagined matching her skills against his and felt the pleasant burn of exertion that would follow. An interesting challenge.

Shift again to a particular stillness, eyes and hands—

_no don't show me Clint_

Skipped.

Jean. Strength and endurance painstakingly hoarded in defiance of the passage of time. A body beginning to show wear and tear. The scars on her back were older than Tony's, though Natasha wasn't sure how she knew that. A level of tension, and also a level of concentration necessary to make sure that the tension didn't show. She wasn't entirely comfortable with her environment.

Next… oh, next came a different experience altogether. Deep, resonant, _thrumming_ with strength. Steve was pacing a little, and Natasha could feel the raw power in his muscles, far outmatching her own. The body was unscarred to a bizarre degree. Bright, tart crackle of superior reflexes. No chance, matching strength versus strength, but imagine _plunging_ into all of that power and draining it dry—

Huh.

Move on.

Wanda…

Wanda _echoed_.

As much as Natasha was now connected to her environment — the living, breathing parts of it, anyway — so too was Wanda connected to hers. Not the same, not the same at all, but still a level of awareness outside of ordinary human experience, and Natasha could see the ways that it complemented her own, back and forth, closer and closer, layers of data opening up like a fractal—

_too much look away_

_...okay_

Lastly…

Oh, interesting.

Vision was… On one level, he was almost invisible. A slight ripple in the fog. Smooth and intractable like plexiglass.

But study it a little closer.

The layers of protection were dense like bulletproof glass, and beneath them, barely detectable, was power. It was concentrated in his forehead, but tendrils extended through his entire body. It was as if… if diamond could be molten, that was what it would look like. Brilliant, glittering, faceted, fluid. If ever she touched that power, it would destroy her.

That was the Infinity Stone.

_enough now?_

_no_

_...yes_

The sensations slowly faded out.

Natasha staggered a few steps to the side as she came back to herself. She'd had a body extending a few hundred yards; it took a second to figure out which parts remained.

Kel had all of that inside her head _all the time_.

When Natasha's breathing had steadied, she said, "It's much more tactical than I expected."

"How we're trained," Kel said.

"You didn't show me myself."

"Is it anything you don't already know?"

It was a subtle reference, at least by Kel's standards. Natasha flexed her left hand, feeling the lingering nerve damage that was her souvenir from Venen-ka.

Cosmetically, the hand appeared normal. Functionally, it was adequate. She could grip a knife or a sword, and that had been good enough in the war. The damage, however, was permanent. Pins and needles came and went in her fingertips. The palm was oddly sensitive to impacts. Worst of all, the last two fingers occasionally went numb, generally only for a few minutes but sometimes for as long as half an hour. It was far from debilitating, but there were consequences. She couldn't type nearly as quickly anymore, and her shooting accuracy with that hand had diminished. Simple, silly things like fastening buttons or using a phone were just a tiny bit harder.

Natasha was lucky. Incredibly lucky. She'd had second- and third-degree burns the length of her arm. In the low-tech environment environment of Venen-ka, without empathic healers available, she likely would have lost the arm entirely.

Perhaps she didn't want to see the injury from Kel's point of view. How glaring and obvious a vulnerability it was.

"No, I suppose not," she said.

"Was it useful?"

"Very."

Kel nodded, and gestured again to the shelves around them. "Like I said, you understand these things better than I do. The three biggest problems that remain are Vision, Wanda, Tony. What do we need?"

"This stuff is secondary." Natasha reached for her pocket. "Allow me to introduce you to a spy's most valuable weapon."

* * *

The team made their plans and their preparations, then Steve sent almost everyone off to get some rest until the twelve-hour grace period was up. Vision, the usual exception, was keeping an eye on the perimeter.

The compound had security cameras and other sensors that covered the grounds and a sizeable area outside the fence. Steve didn't care how quietly Kel and Natasha could sneak. They wouldn't get close without tripping an alarm. Jean's counter proposal was that Kel could breach the perimeter via the lake. Steve conceded that it was possible, but it would still leave her with a lengthy jog across open ground before she reached any of the buildings. Either way, the defending team was going to see her coming.

The opposition made them wait. It was past three in the morning when the first perimeter alarm went off.

Steve sat up quickly in his chair. "Look sharp, everyone," he said into his earpiece. "We've got movement on the perimeter. Northwest and southwest."

While any room in the compound could be converted to a command center with the appropriate access codes, there was also a dedicated control room. Steve and Jean had been spelling each other on watch there since before midnight. Neither one went far when it wasn't their turn; Jean came through the door within seconds of his announcement and joined him at the desk.

The security camera feeds corresponding to the tripped motion sensors moved themselves to the foreground of the display. Each one showed a distant figure creeping through the surrounding woods. The two intruders were dressed much like the hybrids had been, in heavy jackets and ski masks. The one approaching from the northwest had two hands; the one from the southwest, one hand and a metal hook.

"Interesting," Jean murmured.

"We've got Natasha to the north, Kel to the south," Steve said to the team. "Let's see if we can end this before it begins. Tony, Vision, take the south. Wanda, Sam, go north. Clint, maintain position for now. Jean and I will—"

But Wanda's voice broke in. "Ursula!"

"Change of plans, Steve," said Sam. "Our giant cheetah is making a break for it."

A different feed popped up on the screen. It showed Ursula the cheetah, no longer in her enclosure but on _top_ of it, lining up an admittedly majestic leap that cleared the fence and took her deep into the forest.

"She _didn't_," Jean muttered.

"Apparently she did," said Steve. "Vision, Wanda, _go_. Tony, Sam, stay on target. They have a narrow window to make their move, so let's—"

Which was the moment that the cameras went down.

(Rule of engagement: there was going to be property damage.)

"We've lost visual here," Steve said. "Who's got eyes on the targets?"

Under her breath, Jean said, "They showed us their approach. Just enough to let us know who was where. Why?"

A pause. Then:

"Oh _hell_," came Sam's voice. "We've got a man down out here. It's George."

"_What_?" Tony barked.

"Outside the cheetah cage. I didn't see it, but maybe—"

Tony's response left Steve and Jean cringing at both volume and content. A moment later came a faint _thud_ as Iron Man made a landing.

Steve didn't need the security feeds to know where Tony was. "Sam, reposition to cover Kel," he said. "I'm on my way. Clint, do you have Natasha?"

"George?" said Tony. "Come on, you wretched excuse for a horse, wake up."

"Nat crossed the fence behind the hangar," Clint said. "As long as she stays there, I've got no shot."

"That's right, lazy bones, let me look at you."

Jean settled her goggles over her eyes, and raised her hand to her ear. "Tony," she said, "I don't know how, but this is a trap. You need to get out of there."

Steve grabbed his shield, then he and Jean set out at a jog down the corridor. "Sam?" he asked. "What's your status?"

"That's it, buddy, you're okay. Of course you're okay. Come on, let's get you—"

"Tony, get _out_ of there now!"

"Hang on, Steve," Sam said. "I just saw… wait, what the hell is—"

"Hey, no, George, it's me! See, look! Take it easy, it's just— _ow_! What the…"

Steve slammed through the door and scanned the sky. No Sam, no Iron Man. "Report, anyone!" he snapped.

"Tony's down," Clint said. "He took his helmet off when the horse freaked out. I think he got tranqed. Sam I don't know. Nat's still holding position."

"Tranqed by _who_?"

"We have a third intruder," Jean said. "Clint, watch your back. They have a third person already on the grounds."

"What, did they put out a fucking Craigslist ad?"

"We'll ask," Steve said. "Jean's headed your way. I've got Kel."

He and Jean traded nods and split up.

Rule of engagement: any skin contact at all counted as a kill. In the field, every team member wore gloves, goggles and a mask. Steve disliked even the marginal reduction in his hearing and peripheral vision, but there was no help for it at the moment. Tony had promised improved versions once this exercise was off his plate.

In the meantime, however, he'd whipped up a variety of weapons and defenses, including the shock stick currently attached to Steve's belt. It had two settings: human-safe and enhanced-only. Privately, Steve had felt a little reticent about testing out the enhanced setting on Kel. But in light of how the exercise was going so far, he was getting over it.

There was tree cover around the perimeter, but next to nothing between the fence and the buildings. Whatever tricks the opposing team was playing, sooner or later they would simply have to make a run for their target.

Which was exactly what the masked figure with the hook was doing.

A partially concealed image on a security camera was one thing. But in person, it was obvious that this woman was too tall and slender to be Kel.

She pulled up short as soon as she saw him, and held position a cautious distance away.

Steve pulled the shock stick from its holster and thumbed the switch. This was only the low setting, but still it powered up with a high-pitched hum, and pulsed with electric blue light.

"Who are you?" he asked.

The woman pulled off her mask and dropped the fake prosthetic. "Hey, Steve," she said. "Sorry I couldn't make it to your party."

"Hill," he said. "Where's Kel?"

"Oh, she's around," Maria said. "Hey — you wouldn't want to surrender, would you?"

"Funny," said Steve. "That was going to be my question."

Her eyes went to the stick in his hand. "If it helps, I told them that the horse thing was over the line."

"They should have listened."

"Story of my life." Maria drew an extendable baton from the holster on her belt and flicked it open. Her feet shifted to a defensive stance.

_Blast_ of static in his ear and Steve dropped the shock stick just in time to keep from electrocuting himself. He brought the shield up to guard his head and snatched at the earpiece with his other hand, through the mask and the clumsy gloves. He got it out of his ear and the pain diminished, but—

Barest whisper of air gave him a split-second of warning and he rolled his shoulder forward. Something whistled past, and Kel's knee glanced off the back of his skull a moment later. She tumbled through the air past him and landed in a crouch.

"Oh, there she is," Maria said. "Hey, Kel. Steve was just asking about you."

"Not surprised," Kel said. "They all talk too much."

She straightened slowly. Steve retrieved the shock stick, and did likewise.

Kel was carrying the same style of baton as Maria, and wearing the same kind of combat fatigues. Her expression was deadly serious.

Steve had done plenty of sword training with Kel on Venen-ka, but only during the period when he'd lost his strength. Tony and Alisha had restored Steve's powers at the very end of the war, at which point Kel had been dealing with a traumatic experience of her own. The team had maintained their training routine, but she had largely absented herself.

This would be a new experience for both of them.

Kel was fast by ordinary human standards. Not by his. He brought up his shield easily to deflect her baton, flicking the switch on the stick to high at the same time. The shield bounced her momentum right back at her, and broke open her guard long enough for him to jab the stick into her midsection.

There was a nasty zapping sound. Kel gave a grunt of pain and staggered back a couple steps. Then she straightened up and fixed him with a look of grave disappointment.

"Very surprised Jean thought this would work."

"She didn't," Steve admitted. "But we had to be sure."

So much for that. Steve powered down the stick and tossed it aside. Kel likewise dropped her baton.

Rule of engagement: when it came to Kel, there was no holding back. She charged him and leapt, and Steve put as much muscle as he dared behind the shield. It struck her full in the torso and he heard ribs crunch. Even so, she managed to lock her hand around the top edge and no, _that_ wasn't happening. Steve reversed direction and whipped the shield hard over.

Kel went flying over his head, but somehow she retained the coordination to swipe with her foot as she passed. The top of her boot glanced off his goggles. The blow wasn't nearly hard enough to do damage… or it wouldn't have been, if not for the ink bomb. It went off with a faint pop and a sharp chemical smell, and splattered all over his goggles.

Steve heard her land and go tumbling. Maria's footsteps closed in from the other direction, and he shifted his shield to fend off her attack while he yanked his goggles and mask off with his other hand. Her baton pinged off the shield harmlessly.

Kel and Maria together still couldn't do enough damage to slow him down. All Steve had to do was keep Kel from landing a hand on him until Vision and Wanda got back. Maybe he couldn't contain her, but one of them certainly could.

Kel had to know that the clock was ticking. As soon as she got to her feet, she rushed him again.

Still not happening. Steve threw a horizontal slash with the shield. Kel ducked beneath the strike and again tried to grab for the edge, but it was moving too fast for her and she fumbled her grip. The move left her off balance and Steve followed with a right cross. He clocked her full in the face and knocked her to the dirt—

Another acrid chemical scent and sudden burning heat on his arm. Steve looked down in surprise in time to see the straps of his shield _burst into flames_. He jerked his arm free and tossed the shield clear. The incendiary compound had also gotten on his glove, and he yanked that off, too, just in time for Kel and Maria to attack in tandem.

But even with two points of vulnerability, Steve still outmatched them both for strength and speed. He kept up easily with the flurry of strikes. A quick slap relieved Maria of her baton. Kel tried to work her way around to his left, but he fended her off with a kick to the ribs and closed on Maria. She went low, tried to take him out at the knees. Easily blocked. He trapped her leg with his and twisted at the hip, and Maria was the one who hit the ground.

She looked past him to Kel, and Steve could sense the unspoken communication: _time for a change of plan_.

Kel lunged at Steve one last time. They traded blows for just long enough for Maria to find her feet again. Then the two women broke off their attack and went sprinting for the residence.

That was just fine with Steve. Jean had been adamant that there was only one tactic that could work against Kel, and that was confinement. The defending team had seeded the grounds with two dozen nets propelled by pressure-activated explosive bolts. The systems were fully automated, which meant that Kel couldn't see them.

Of course, Steve still had to make it look good. He gave chase, keeping his speed in check so that he only gained on them slowly. The two of them split up, and he stayed with Kel. She was heading straight for one of the buried pressure plates. Steve closed to within a couple of yards—

Somehow — and _God_, it must have hurt — Kel made a mid-stride one-eighty and dropped to the ground on her back. Steve was going too fast to stop himself before he ran her down. She tucked her legs and kicked upward, and boosted him clear over her head.

The pressure plate clicked, and there was not a damned thing Steve could do about it.

When the ringing in his ears from the explosive bolts had faded, Steve found himself tightly bound in a net made of carbon fiber cables. Kel and Maria were standing over him.

"Yikes," Maria said. "That looked unpleasant."

Suddenly Kel shoved her hard to one side and dived to the other. The repulsor blast kicked up an explosion of grass and dirt right where they'd been standing.

Steve looked up. Iron Man was suited up and hovering midair.

"You upset my horse," he said.

* * *

Tony was _pissed_. He'd had five years scared off of his life at seeing George down, he'd been shot in the neck with a fucking tranquilizer dart, and he'd woken up with a frantic horse aggressively licking his nostrils.

"I think it's worth remembering," Hill said, "that this is just a training exercise, and we're all friends here."

"Good point," Tony said, and dropped to the ground. "You look tired, friend. Take a load off."

He aimed one hand at Hill and the other at Kel, and fired two sets of ankle restraints.

Hill had no chance. At first, it looked like Kel didn't, either. But then—

Oh, for fuck's sake.

Kel somehow pulled her foot — now visibly the wrong shape — free from her boot. She scampered awkwardly on three limbs for a couple of strides until it had reformed itself, then took off running.

Fine. They could do this the hard way. Tony lowered his arm and activated the modified net gun on his shoulder. It had been straightforward to design a net sufficiently large that she was physically incapable of dodging it, accounting for her reflexes and ground speed. On his HUD, the targeting system flashed green, and he fired.

Kel broke left and it didn't matter. The individually powered bolts lining the edge of the net buried themselves in the ground on all sides of her. The impact knocked her to the ground, and the filaments retracted until she was pinned flat on her face.

Tony strode forward, in no particular rush, until he was standing over her. "Are you done?" he asked.

Kel worked her hand outward until she could get a grasp on the nearest bolt. The built-in electric charge let her know that that wasn't a good idea. She kept a grip on it for several seconds anyway before finally breaking off with a grimace. Her fingertips came away blistered.

"Apparently I am," she said.

"Uh… Tony?"

Oh. Steve. Right.

The snare nets also had bolts that anchored themselves in the dirt. Tony tripped the deactivation switch, then helped Steve disentangle himself.

"You okay?" he asked.

"A little bruised," Steve replied. "Nothing serious. You?"

"I spent ten months getting drugged to sleep every night. Got a little sick of it. Now the suit carries a general counteragent." It had worked, of course, but Tony's ears were buzzing and his vision was a little fuzzy around the edges. "I'd forgotten how much fun it is to mix sedatives and stimulants," he said. "Let's work a 'no drugging' clause into the rules of engagement next time. Anyway, FRIDAY should have comms clear by now."

Steve's earpiece had come askew. He replaced it and said, "Jean, Clint — report?"

"The first intruder is contained," Jean replied. She sounded exhausted, and also congested, like she'd taken a good punch to the nose.

"Pretty pissed off about it, but contained," Clint added.

Tony said, "The second and uninvited third intruders are likewise."

"Who'd they get?" Clint asked.

"Maria Hill."

"Steve? Are you reading us now?" It was Wanda's voice.

"Yeah, communications are back up," Steve said. "What's your status?"

"We found Ursula. She's okay."

Tony rolled his eyes. "I'm not as worried about the giant cheetah as I am about everyone the giant cheetah might have eaten."

"We caught up to her before she reached the town," Wanda said, a tad reproachfully. "No one even saw her. She was a bit upset, but she's calming down now. Vision is on his way back to you. Is the compound secure?"

"Yeah, we're fine," Tony said. "It's over."

From the ground, Kel gave a quiet chuckle.

He turned and glared. "What?"

"Did you find Sam yet?"

_Shit_.

"Don't go anywhere," Tony said, and lifted off again.

FRIDAY soon located Sam's jetpack. It lay just outside the perimeter fence in the southwest sector. Tony gave Steve the coordinates and met him on the ground.

They found Sam unconscious, and thoroughly attached to the base of a tree. To be more precise, he was thoroughly _webbed_ to the base of a tree.

_What the_—

Incongruously, Tony's phone rang. FRIDAY transferred the call to his HUD. It was young Mr. Parker.

"Um. Hi, Mr. Stark. Everyone." He waved at the camera. "I've got the thing, see?" His hand dipped out of view for a second, and came back with Kel's bracelet. "And I'm outside the gate. So, we won, right?"


	5. Chapter 5

"Cheat!" Tony declared as soon as he walked into the common room, and Sam was really glad that someone else was going to throw the tantrum so that he didn't have to do it. "Cheated, cheating, cheaters, _cheat_!"

Kel, the primary target of his pronouncement and pointed finger, absorbed this impassively. "This is 'cheat_er_', not 'cheet_ah_', yes?" she said. "Because the cheetah did help, but we didn't bring it to the meeting."

"Yeah, we didn't think the cheetah would appreciate having to fit through the door," said Maria, who looked just as unimpressed with Tony's temper. "We could move the debriefing outside, if—"

"_You_— actually, hold on, I don't plan on doing this more than once. Where's our fourth culprit and her playmates?"

"Natasha said that they were just getting cleaned up," Steve said. "It shouldn't be too much longer now."

The last thing Sam remembered from the exercise was the Spider-kid sailing out of the treetops like a flying lemur and jabbing him in the neck. By the time Tony had revived him and cut him free from the damned webbing he'd been stuck in, it had all been over. Tony and Steve had given him the rundown of the last several minutes, at least from their perspective. Sam was squarely with Tony on this one: the other team had cheated.

The bulk of the original group plus the two interlopers were all back in the common room at the residence now, waiting for the debrief to start. Sam sat on one of the stools by the kitchen island and hoped to hell he wasn't going to slide off it. He was still a little woozy from the tranq.

(And by the way, he was gonna have a _chat_ with Natasha about her bright idea to give Spider-Boy tranquilizer darts.)

Maybe Sam faded out for a second, because the next thing he knew, Natasha, Clint and Jean were walking in, single-file.

They weren't walking very fast.

It was a perfect illustration of what highly trained, highly competitive people without a lick of sense between them could do to each other. The three faces had a textbook's worth of split lips, bloodied eyebrows, and swelling cheekbones. Jean was at the end of the line, and as she came into view… oh _damn_, that must have hurt. She had a matched set of spectacular shiners over top of a visibly broken nose.

There was a moment of silence.

"Morning," Jean said.

Steve and Wanda quickly jumped up from the couch and offered it to the three wounded.

"Are you all right?" Steve asked.

"Yes."

"Of course."

"Uh-huh."

They limped their way over to the couch. Clint was clutching a hand to his chest, and his little finger was sticking out at a nasty angle. Natasha had one arm wrapped around her side like she was nursing some bruised ribs. Jean was seriously favoring her right knee. Slowly, stiffly, and with a lot of suppressed groaning, they sat down.

Once that process had concluded, Steve asked, "Are you sure?"

"No."

"Not at all."

"Oh God."

Peter was finally starting to lose some of the smug attitude. He winced and asked, "Did you guys do that to each other?"

"We neutralized the intruder," Clint said.

Natasha scoffed. "You do realize that my mission was to buy time for Spider-Man to complete his mission, right?"

"Nah, don't even try it. You got yourself neutralized _good_."

"Folks, I'd like to slink off somewhere quiet to die in the near future," Jean said, nasally. "If we could perhaps move this meeting along…"

Steve said, "Kel, I know this isn't your job anymore, but would you mind doing some repair work?"

Kel crossed to the couch and knelt next to Clint. "Is it all right?" she asked.

"You really don't have to ask anymore," he said, and passed her his busted hand.

"Before you depart this mortal coil," Maria said to Jean, "We haven't officially met. Maria Hill."

"The former deputy director of SHIELD," she responded. "Yes, I know who you are. My name is Jean."

"How 'former' it is is open to debate," Tony said.

"Before you came in, Tony had been gearing up for a rant," said Maria. "I think we're still due for the list of grievances."

"I'll skip to the executive summary," Tony said. The accusing finger came back up and picked out each member of the opposing team in turn. "Cheater, other cheater, gate crasher, and as for _you_—" this was directed at Peter "—it is a _school night_!"

Funny how things changed. Sam could remember a time when seeing Tony that angry would have freaked the kid right out. Now he just leaned back in his chair and shrugged.

"I'm not that tired," he said. "It's no big deal."

"Does dear Aunt May even know where you are, or should I assume that the FBI is raiding my penthouse right now?"

"Of course she knows where I am," Peter said. "Black Widow called her and explained the whole thing."

"Is that so?" said Tony. "_What_ did she explain, exactly?"

"That there was a critical Avengers training exercise going on, and my presence would be indispensable."

Tony crossed his arms. "Oh, we're _indispensable_ now."

He shrugged again. "Kinda was, wasn't I?"

"Indispensable at _cheating_."

Maria said, "It's not cheating, Tony. Recruiting and running local assets is all part of the business."

"You do not run him!" Tony snapped.

"Then who does run him?"

"Yeah, who does run me?" Peter asked.

"You run your own affairs in your neighborhood," Tony said, "and I run interference to keep serious dangers away from you, and vice versa."

Kel finished with Clint's finger and sat back on her heels. "Sometimes I think all the talking is funny," she said. "Then I remember what Kith will do to us if we can't fix this problem."

Yeah. Back to business. "Can I point out one thing?" Sam said. "Somewhere along the line, this stopped being about what _you_ can do and turned into a free-for-all. Which we probably should have seen coming, frankly, but I'm not sure how much it got us."

"Some of you I can't fight," Kel said. She moved on to Natasha, who shifted her hair off the nasty bruise on her cheek. "A lot of you, really. So, if we're in a fight, either I need to use someone who can fight you, or I need to make you be somewhere else."

"You figure they've got other enhanced?"

"Possible," she said. "When we don't know who they are, very hard to guess what they have. But I'm sure they'll have things we don't expect."

Steve said, "What I want to know is how you breached the perimeter without Vision or the cameras noticing."

"She never left," Jean sighed.

Quite a few people, Sam included, sat back and groaned.

"Always better to attack from inside than outside," Kel said. "Natasha gave me a phone before she left. A spy's most valuable weapon, I learn. I stayed in the cage with the cheetah, and we talked about the plan from a distance. When Vision came close, the cheetah's heat blocked mine."

Steve tossed up a hand in resignation. "Which means you watched us plant every one of our traps."

Natasha's face was back to normal. She lifted up the hem of her shirt, and Kel shifted her attention to the nasty bruise lighting up most of her side.

"Yes," Kel said to Steve. "But even if I didn't, I would still know where they are. Everyone always tries this — 'j'Brenithi can sense bodies, so we don't use bodies, we use traps'. Except you still have to move around the same space, which means you step _here_ and not _there_. Be more careful in this place than that one. All I have to do is watch this for a while, and it's obvious."

"We'll remember that," said Steve.

"The net was good," she continued with a nod to Tony. "The one you shot from your suit. Nothing I could do. The electric stick didn't work at all."

"Seriously?" Tony said. "Even on the high setting?"

"That's affirmative," Steve said dryly. "I tried it, with no effect."

Tony glared at Kel's back. "That thing could stun a charging lion. You're ridiculous, you know that?"

"Painful," Kel said casually. "Bad electric burns, yes. A human would have serious problems, I think. It takes practice to learn how to deal with this kind of damage quickly, but we train at this as children, and we should assume that the hybrids practice, too."

Sam had heard enough about Brenith childhoods to _almost_ not be shocked at the imagery. Maria, who hadn't been around on Venen-ka for Kel's fun stories, did a double-take.

"Um," she said, and held up one finger. "Sorry, did you just say that you train at enduring electrocution as children?"

"Of course."

"Don't even start," Sam told her. "You go down that rabbit hole, you'll never climb out again."

Kel moved on to the third of the casualties. "Any kind of damage," she said, "if it doesn't destroy the brain or sever the spinal cord, assume that it's only a problem for a short time."

Tony said, "In fairness, that's exactly what Jean said. Score one for the expert."

"So," said Sam, "a hybrid isn't out of commission unless they're dead or fully immobilized, and we can expect diversions, allies on the inside, and maybe some unknown powers or tech."

"And threats to nearby civilians," Vision said, with a noticeable edge of disapproval in his tone.

Sam grimaced. Between the surprise Spider-Boy and the drugging, he'd almost forgotten how this whole thing had started.

"How's Ursula doing?" he asked Wanda.

"She's okay now," Wanda said, and shot her own glare Kel's way. "But I've only seen her in hunting mode like that once before, in the war when Humphrey was planning to use her to attack us. If she'd found people before we caught up with her…"

"Had to be real enough to take both of you out of the game," Kel said. She stood up, revealing that Jean's nose was back to its normal shape, though her face was still thoroughly bruised. "Do you want revenge? There are things we avoided with you so we had a better chance to win, that I'm curious to try."

This was the thing about Kel: she could turn it on and off. Sam respected her as a soldier, and most of the time he liked her as a person. She was patient, compassionate, and had an off-beat sense of humor… unless she was in combat mode. Then she was the toughest motherfucker in the room and she wasn't shy about letting you know it.

Those were the vibes she was sending Wanda now. The stance, the look, the cocky little head-tilt — it was all carefully tuned for maximum provokation.

Wanda slowly stood up from her chair. She wasn't so different from Kel, for that matter. Quiet and reserved, until she wasn't.

"Sure," she said.

Tony sighed and muttered something about people putting holes in his walls. Several members of the audience backed off to the perimeter.

"Can you tell that I'm not human?" Kel asked.

Wanda's eyes narrowed. "You're aware of your surroundings in a very unusual way," she said. "I wouldn't know that you were an alien, necessarily, but I can tell that you're different."

"I know that you can hold me still with the… the red things you make."

"Force fields," Natasha supplied.

"These, yes," said Kel. "Show me."

She broke into a lunge. But she barely made it two steps before Wanda's hand came up, and she was pulled up hard by a flare of red light. It surrounded her body and lifted her a couple feet off the ground.

It was a colorful demonstration of exactly why Natasha and company had needed to take Wanda off the field. Kel's expression twisted with effort as she tried to struggle, but she got exactly nowhere. Wanda's mental effort held her suspended and immobile until she'd exhausted herself.

"_All right_," Kel finally gasped, and Wanda dropped her to the ground.

Her landing wasn't the greatest. She staggered to the side and took a few careful breaths. This was not a person who was accustomed to losing, and for a second Sam wasn't sure how worried he needed to be about her response.

Then the switch flipped back. Kel straightened up and gave a rueful chuckle. "A very good trick," she said. "Just as good as the net. But the thing I really wondered was if I already touch you. Could you stop me then?"

Across the room, Jean straightened in her seat, just noticeably.

If there was one thing Kel had accomplished over the last twenty-four hours, it was to condition them to get nervous any time she threatened skin contact. Wanda hesitated, and asked, "What will you try to do?"

"Make you sleep," Kel said. "If you agree."

You didn't get to the point of suiting up and calling yourself an Avenger without that drive to test yourself. Wanda was just as susceptible to a challenge as the rest of them.

"All right," she said. "Let's try it."

Kel strode forward and clasped her hand. Both of them closed their eyes.

As a guy with no extrasensory perception, Sam obviously wasn't following every detail of the conflict. Wanda didn't collapse, and Kel didn't get blasted by a red fireball. He wasn't sure which one to be more startled by. All around him, he could feel the audience holding their breath.

A red shimmer, much more faint than the force field she'd thrown before, began to gather around Wanda's free hand.

Kel's brow furrowed in response. Tension grew in her body, muscle by muscle. The fireball sputtered and vanished.

The battle of wills continued until Sam's toes were curling with sympathetic effort. Wanda summoned another red flare, this time surrounding their joined hands. Kel coiled up even tighter in response, but it seemed like her fuel tank was finally running dry. Little by little, the red light expanded outward and grew in intensity.

Sam's nostrils flared. He could have sworn he smelled barbecue.

Suddenly Vision was on his feet. "I think that's sufficient," he said sharply.

The combatants weren't listening. Both of their faces were contorted with effort, and their hands were obscured by the bright red ball of light. The burning smell was unmistakable now. Sam found himself standing too, though what the hell he hoped to do in this situation he had no idea.

Jean said, "Steve, she won't—"

"Vision, break it up!"

But Wanda beat him to it. She summoned a fireball in her free hand, and this time she managed to hold on to it long enough to blast Kel full in the chest. Kel flew back and hit the deck.

Wanda also staggered backward until she could lean a hand against the wall, where she doubled over, gasping for breath. Vision hurried to join her.

Kel sat up slowly. She was holding her hand gingerly away from her body. It was charred black and red.

(It wasn't healthy to get close to Kel when she was injured. As much as Sam's medic's instincts were screaming that that burn needed attention right goddamned now, he made himself hang back.)

Jean pinched the bridge of her nose. "Steve — and believe me, I include myself in the problem — but have you ever considered that this group of people should not be allowed to set their own training exercises?"

"You worry too much," said Kel. She wrinkled her nose at the hunk of charred meat that was her left hand, then looked up at Wanda and Vision. "They came from the same place," she said. "Your powers."

"That's true," Vision said. He gestured to his forehead. "This is the Mind Stone. Are you familiar with—"

"I know what an Infinity Stone is, yes."

"Before it became a part of me, human scientists spent several years trying to unlock its powers."

"_Hydra_ scientists," Wanda said. She lowered her eyes. "My brother and I were the only ones to survive the experiments. Then I was the only one to survive the disaster that followed."

"Amazing that your body can contain even a piece of it," Kel said. "No wonder I couldn't touch you."

"You came close," Wanda said, and nodded toward her hand. "I'm sorry about that. It was the only thing I could think of."

Healthy skin was already creeping back up her wrist. Kel shrugged. "Necessary to win. What I wanted you to do."

"Never a dull moment around here," said Maria. "I should drop by more often."

"Yeah, what are you doing here?" Tony asked. "You didn't fly in just for this nonsense."

"No. I'm here with a message from Nick Fury. He has information for you."

* * *

**Interstice**

_"Is this what you need?"_

_"Perfect. Were there any problems?"_

_"Of course not. But if you're planning what I think you're planning, I should warn you, there will come a point when my brother takes exception."_

_"We have no fight with Asgard. And I'm sure Thor will come to see that it's in his best interest not to fight with us."_

* * *

T'Challa believed that he was adapting well to almost all of the results of drastically altering Wakanda's participation in global politics. But the one consequence that never failed to take him by surprise was the paperwork.

Occasionally he imagined how his life would be now if he had hewed to tradition. Certainly he would have continued to monitor the rest of the world, just as Wakanda had been doing for decades. For the sake of his country's secrecy, he would have been unable to offer sanctuary to the Asgardian refugees. There would have been no outreach programs, and therefore no complex, delicate, ever-shifting negotiations with dozens of countries simultaneously. He was quite sure, then, that his desk would not be buried beneath stacks of reports, petitions and complaints half a meter deep.

(Yes, yes, obviously all of the data could have been sent electronically, but many of T'Challa's correspondents insisted on communicating with Wakanda exclusively in hard copy.)

It would have been considerably easier to run a country that was only concerned with its own affairs. But, for all the challenges that the past two years had brought, T'Challa had never doubted that he'd made the right decision.

He contemplated the choices in front of him. Most of the documents were requests from other countries, private businesses, and charities for various forms of support. Those were quite standard; the only challenge was keeping up with the volume. The entries that he wished to ignore, though he knew that this would solve nothing, were the many repeated protests over the fact that Wakanda was harboring Loki.

Each of those issues was pressing in its way, but T'Challa shifted his attention from them to something even more potentially incendiary: the recent attack in Stuttgart.

He still wasn't sure how the Brenithi had acquired the security footage; according to his sources, the Americans had hoped to bury the precise nature of the terrorists' enhancements, at least in the short term. He wondered whether this indicated that they knew the source of the stolen Brenith genetic material, and were trying to conceal their culpability. But it was just as possible that they had simply been trying to postpone the inevitable anger from their new ally.

Naturally, the _hirethe_ were furious. Kith had made a ringing speech to the UN assembly on the grievous threat this incident posed to the hoped-for non-aggression treaty. In response, the first official activation of the Sokovia Accord provisions was pushed through committee at lightning speed. The Avengers were given sweeping travel authorizations and access to all investigations, completed or in progress.

On the part of everyone involved, the responses seemed reasonable. And yet.

And yet T'Challa did not trust the _hirethe_ or anything they said. Their polished manners and friendly offers were a veneer, and beneath it, they were predators. He knew this as deeply, as certainly as he knew anything. Even if he couldn't see the angle they were playing yet, it was _there_. He just had to remain alert for it.

"Hello, T'Challa."

He looked up swiftly, and found a most welcome sight at the door.

"Nakia!" T'Challa stood up quickly — too quickly, and his knee banged into the underside of the table. The brief pain didn't slow the smile that spread across his face. "I didn't expect you back until tomorrow."

"I know," Nakia said. She came forward to meet him, and folded his hands in hers. "I wanted to surprise you."

"You succeeded." He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her cheek — just a hint, for now, of what he hoped would be a far more satisfying reunion later on. "How was your mission?"

"The militia group that was raiding our medical supply convoys has had several tragic accidents befall its weapons caches," she said. "They won't be a problem anymore."

"I'm glad to hear it," said T'Challa. He followed her out from behind the desk into the antechamber, where a cushioned bench allowed them to sit side by side. "And I'm glad to see you home."

"I finally had time to catch up with the news," Nakia told him once they were settled. "It's hard to believe how much I missed."

"What do you think?"

"Where to begin? I can understand offering sanctuary to the Asgardian refugees — of course you had to do that — but Loki? The being who tried to use an alien army to conquer Earth only six years ago?"

It was much the same thing that the tribal elders and every one of T'Challa's advisors — not to mention the rest of the world — had said.

"Obviously I discussed the matter with Thor," T'Challa replied. "He told me that Loki was instrumental in defeating Hela and evacuating the survivors."

Nakia's eyes narrowed. "Is that all he told you?"

T'Challa sighed quietly. "He mentioned one or two betrayals along the way, as well," he admitted. "No one is claiming that Loki can be trusted. But the remaining Asgardians don't deserve to suffer for his crimes. Thor has promised to keep him on the settlement, but he absolutely will not discuss extradition. I… chose not to press him on it."

_He's my brother_, Thor had said to him, and it had been enough. Perhaps it shouldn't have been, but it was. If Erik Stevens had lived… if the world were calling for _his_ head now, in answer for his crimes… T'Challa wondered if he wouldn't take the exact same position, logic and diplomacy be damned. Problems created by Wakanda needed to be solved by Wakanda. It would have been no one else's responsibility but his. If Thor felt the same, T'Challa could hardly blame him for it.

Nakia didn't need him to explain. She sighed and shook her head, but there was understanding in her eyes.

In any event, T'Challa preferred to discuss more recent news. "You're aware of the attack in Germany, of course," he said.

"Yes. What have you learned?"

"The Americans' classified reports are only slightly more informative than those they have released to their allies," he said. "The two intruders killed ten American servicemen. They broke into a records storage facility that, as far as anyone is admitting, contained payroll records, inventory reports and so forth from forty years ago. Nothing of any relevance to anyone. It's still unclear what they stole, if in fact they stole anything. Thanks to their enhanced abilities, which appear to be Brenith in origin, they were able to evade base security and vanish." T'Challa sat back and spread his hands. "I'm still not sure what to make of it all. What do you think?"

"I think the whole operation was sloppy," Nakia replied. "Or, at least, it was made to look sloppy. Not only did they kill far more than they needed to, and get caught on camera when it could have been avoided, but they were specifically recorded using abilities that had to have come from Brenith DNA. It's amateurish to give away so much information for no purpose. But a group with the resources to create Brenith-human hybrids doesn't hire amateurs. That makes me think there _was_ a purpose. We saw exactly what we were supposed to see."

"A challenge to draw out the Avengers?" T'Challa suggested.

Nakia considered a moment before she spoke. "Possibly," she said. "But they could have proved that they were enhanced without showing us exactly how. That would have been enough to guarantee the Avengers' involvement. Instead, they went out of their way to tell us where they came from, and I don't understand why. There's a piece we're missing, and it's something important."

"I think you're right," T'Challa said. "Though, selfishly, I wish you were wrong."

"You want me to see what I can find out."

He nodded.

Nakia's eyes danced with mischief. "Of course, my king. Shall I leave right away?"

"Tomorrow," T'Challa said firmly.

* * *

The Quinjet would have been overcrowded with a team of ten plus gear, so Tony lent his private plane to the cause. Sam, who definitely wasn't averse to enjoying a taste of the good life, got himself attached to Tony's contingent, along with Jean, Kel and Nat. In the Quinjet, Steve, Clint, Rhodes, Wanda and Vision rounded out the team roster.

The flight to Germany was several hours. The plane itself was fully automated — which Sam decided that he was _not_ thinking about — and there was more than enough space for the five of them to spread out and relax. They'd all gotten some rest between the end of the team meeting and the time that the FBI had finally showed up to free Steve from his ankle monitor, but a little more down time was still a welcome thing. Sam, like everyone else, spent most of the flight in a light doze.

An announcement brought him around again: they were half an hour from Stuttgart. He straightened up in his seat and stretched his arms above his head, and grimaced as his shoulders made some fun popping noises. Across from him, Jean rubbed the sleep from her eyes and rolled her neck.

"You ready for your first public appearance as a member of the team?" Sam asked her.

Thanks to Kel's efforts, Jean was no longer sporting any traces of her recently broken nose. Even so, her hand came up to her face self-consciously before she caught herself.

"I suppose it's no more bizarre than anything else that's happened to me recently," she replied.

"Hey, you were into the superhero lifestyle since long before you met us," Sam said. "These days, I'll grant you that just about anyone can cross paths with an alien—" he jerked his chin in Kel's direction "—but most people don't go from there to running a war in another universe."

Natasha poked her head up from behind Sam and said, "Just like most people don't go from running into a guy on the Mall one day to strapping on a set of wings and taking down a rogue government agency, right?"

"I don't always like admitting it, but it's true," he said. "A whole lot of the nonsense in my life is my own damn fault. I keep wondering when you're going to let us in on your excuse."

Natasha, who for a super-spy could be incredibly blatant sometimes, continued to kneel upright with her elbows resting on the back of the seat next to Sam. Across the aisle and another row up, Tony was at least pretending not to be listening intently. Even so, Jean had to realize that she had the attention of the entire plane.

She exhaled slowly. "I've been thinking a lot about my brother recently," she said, addressing Sam. "From my perspective, he was killed over eight years ago, though of course the calendar no longer agrees. You remind me of him a little, in fact. It's the Special Forces swagger — you all pick it up."

"What branch?" Sam asked.

"Army. He was a Green Beret, or at least that's where it began." Jean smiled fondly, but Sam could see the sadness in her eyes. "As the big sister, I never liked being outdistanced," she said. "So whenever he was home, I got him to teach me. He used to say that he worked harder while on leave than he did when he was deployed. I trained on my own, as well — I'd already been doing so for years — but keeping up with him gave me a focus I hadn't had before.

"Somewhat later, he was recruited into Intelligence. I saw him less after that, and when he did get time to come home, I could tell that he didn't want to bring his job with him. I was becoming interested in working with the enhanced around the same time, but we hardly ever spoke about it. I… regret that now. Missed opportunities.

"So I suppose the answer to your question is that this is largely my brother's fault," she said, and dabbed at her eyes. "I admired the things he could do, but it was always… as long as he was around, it was a theoretical exercise for me. Does that make sense? I could shoot a target better than he could, and I could take him three falls out of five, but he was the one who _did_ things, whereas I only imagined the things that I would do. If ever I had to do them. And then he was gone, and it seemed like… now it was my turn to take action. To take such actions as I believed were necessary and right. And that's what I've tried to do."

Everyone gave that a long, respectful pause.

"Sounds like your brother was a good guy," Sam said. "I'm sorry."

"So am I."

"It changes your perspective on a lot of things. Losing someone close. I'm pretty sure everyone on this plane knows how that goes."

Jean nodded. "I imagine that's true. How about you, Sam? What keeps you wearing a suit of wings and leaping off of tall buildings?"

"Besides the fact that I get to wear a suit of wings and leap off of tall buildings?" It was Sam's turn to take a moment to assemble his thoughts. Riley was a part of the story, of course. A lot of good days, and then one really bad one that had turned out to be the beginning of the end of that particular path. But that experience wasn't the only thing that had shaped his choices.

"After my house arrest was lifted last week," Sam said, "I spent a couple days with my sister and her family. My nephew Charlie is thirteen. And the whole time I was there, I just kept thinking, this kid should never have to see an alien army marching down his street. Or a robot army. Or…"

"An alien robot army?" Natasha suggested.

"You get the idea. No one should have to do the things we do. I do them because I can, and so that the next guy won't need to."

Jean nodded pensively.

The plane banked. They were starting their descent.

"Time to get our game faces on," Nat said. "Hold the introspection until after we've saved the world." But before she sat down, she asked Jean, "Three falls out of five?"

"Well. On occasion."

Most of Sam's experience as an Avenger had been under the radar. His team had been on their own in DC, and again in Leipzig. After that, he'd been either a fugitive or under arrest. This was… a whole lot different.

The team regrouped in Stuttgart Airport, where they were met by local police, US Army liaisons, and government officials. Quite a lot of handshakes were exchanged. Some aides stepped in to carry their gear. Once the convoy got to town, the Avengers were supplied with vehicles and a collection of very nice hotel rooms, as well as promises of access to anything they wanted.

They hadn't left New York until almost noon, which made it late evening local time. There wasn't much point in trying to interview witnesses or examine the scene at that hour. Steve collected contact information and accepted transfers of files from the ongoing investigation. The team would review the most recent reports, and start fresh the next day.

And they would also make a side trip.

Once the last of the officials had been sent on their way, the whole group piled into their three government-issue SUVs. Maria, who had found her own way back to Europe, texted Steve with directions.

They headed south towards Switzerland, a trip that wound up taking over two hours. (Sam was glad he'd packed a protein bar.) They crossed the border and kept following the signs for Zurich, until Maria's instructions brought them to a cute little hotel in a cute little village about ten miles outside the city.

The black SUVs were a jarring sight as they trundled down the narrow gravel road. The team parked around back — theirs were the only vehicles present — then the ten of them filed through the wooden door with its cheery carvings and entered the lobby.

The interior was even more charmingly rustic than the exterior. It was cozy. Aggressively so. Verging on kitsch. _Not_ the sort of imagery that Sam associated with Nick Fury, though that was probably the point.

Fury himself was sitting in what the brochures for this place probably called a charming breakfast nook, on the left side of the room by the bay window. His black leather coat didn't exactly go with the ambience. The team spread out around the lobby, and Fury subjected each of them in turn to a long, measuring look.

"Hey, Nick," said Tony. "Long time, no see. Are you in the B&B business now?" He waved his hand at their surroundings. "I love the atmosphere. If you're taking reservations for next season, I'm sure I can convince Pepper to come out here for a weekend."

Fury waited this out, which was pretty much the only thing to be done when Tony went on a tear.

"You through?" he asked.

"For the moment," Tony said. "Is Hill around, or— never mind," he amended when Maria came through the door behind the front desk. "The gang's all here."

Steve worked his way to the front of the crowd. He shot Tony the sort of quelling look that never actually worked on Tony, then said, "Hello, Nick. Good to see you again."

Steve's approach finally prompted Fury to stand. The two men shook hands.

"You too, Cap," Fury said. "You gonna introduce me to your new teammates?"

"Of course. This is Kel verak Tor, shorath j'Brenithi, and this is Jean."

Kel had stayed near the back of the room, by the door. She and Fury traded restrained nods. Then Fury turned to Jean.

"So you're her," he said.

"Why is that always everyone's first line?" Tony asked the ceiling.

"Nicholas Fury," Fury said to Jean, and extended his hand. "Former director of SHIELD."

"Yes," Jean said. "I know."

Then — in a room chock-full of Avengers and in the sight of God — she hauled off and slugged Nick Fury in the face.

It was a good old-fashioned haymaker, and Jean was a powerful woman. Fury hit the deck with a sound like kingdoms falling.

Jean bent over him and spat, "My brother died because of _you_, you selfish arrogant _bastard_!"

It was maybe the longest split-second of Sam's life as the group stood frozen in the collective headlights of _what the FUCK?_

Then a whole lot of movement happened at once.

Maria went for her gun. But Kel — who Sam could have sworn had been nowhere near her a moment earlier — trapped that hand beneath her arm and pulled Maria up short with a knife held tight to her throat.

Steve grabbed Jean's shoulders and shoved her toward Sam, then snapped, "Kel, put the knife away, _now_!"

Jean staggered backward. Her hand came up to cover her mouth (knuckles already swelling up), and her eyes went wide like she'd seen a ghost. Sam had the impression that she was just as shocked as any of them. A bit more gently, he guided her back a few more steps.

"This one drops the gun," Kel responded.

"I'm not asking you again!"

A _thud_ came from the floor behind the counter.

Kel opened her hand and the knife vanished. She freed Maria's arm and took a step back.

Tony said, "Not as much fun being on the other side from her, is it?"

Maria glowered.

"By the way," Tony continued for some damned reason, "this is our new punching story, right? Once enough time goes by that we start seeing the humor, this is the one we… instead of…" He trailed off and looked around the room. "Too soon?"

Clint said, "Little too soon, yeah."

"Tony, knock it off," Steve said sharply.

"You mean, you've got a better idea than a bit of de-escalation?"

"That's not what I'd call what you're doing."

From the ground, Fury cleared his throat. It was Rhodey who took a few quick steps forward and pulled him back to his feet.

Fury took his sweet time dusting himself off. Then he pulled a folded cloth from an inside pocket and dabbed gingerly at the goose egg that was blooming on his cheekbone. He tucked the cloth away again, then adjusted his eyepatch, and only _then_ did he turn Jean's way.

"A lot of people's brothers died because of me," he said. "Care to narrow the field a little?"

Sam was keenly aware that Jean was more than capable of making an issue out of his hand on her arm, but she seemed not to have even clocked his presence yet. Wherever in her head she'd gone, she was only just starting to find her way back.

"His name was Yong Zhang," Jean said hoarsely. "I don't expect you to remember it."

"I remember all the names," said Fury.

"Wait a second," Natasha said. "Zhang? Recruited out of the Green Berets? He was a SHIELD agent. I _knew_ him." She looked at Steve. "This was a little before your time. Zhang was one of ours. He led a Special Response Team. They had some seriously hairy ops on their resumé. He was killed in…" She trailed off and looked at Jean. Sympathy and understanding appeared in her expression.

Whatever it was she'd realized, she didn't seem to be sharing it. The silence stretched on until Tony finally snapped, "_In_?"

"In a research facility," Jean said, "the precise location of which took me considerable effort to obtain, in the Mojave desert. More specifically, the research in question took place a hundred feet _below_ the desert. Yong and close to eighty other people were killed when a tragic and, to my mind, eminently foreseeable incident led to the facility's collapse. Six years ago this May."

Oh, holy shit.

Six years ago was May 2012. The entire world knew what had happened then.

"The Tesseract?" Steve said. "When Loki first came to Earth and—"

"Yes," said Jean. With a quick tug, she freed herself from Sam's grip. "Yong told me it was an easy assignment. As good as a vacation. All he had to do was babysit some scientists for a few weeks. But one does not assign a man of my brother's skills unless one expects to need those skills."

"Zhang didn't die in the cave-in," Fury said. "Like I said, I remember all the names. He was on the security detail that was down in the Tesseract chamber with us when Loki came through. He and his team engaged the enemy. By the numbers. Unfortunately, you can't fight a god with bullets."

"A fact that you might have considered more carefully before inviting one in."

"I didn't know that—"

"No, you didn't know _anything_ about the device you were tampering with," Jean bit out, "save that it was powerful and you wanted it for yourself. Because that's what men like you _do_."

Fury shot back, "And what do you call traveling the globe to build yourself a secret army of enhanced individuals?"

"Not an army," said Jean, "and not for me. A network of resources for each other. I don't control them. I've never tried."

"Enough," Kel interjected. "The debt was valid. The claim was made. Are you satisfied?"

"Yes," Jean said after a moment. "It was sufficient."

"Fine. Now we can talk about the other problem."

Fury turned his glare on Kel. "Excuse me? _I'm_ still a little unsatisfied here."

"The debt was yours. It was paid. Now we move on."

Fury looked around and got helpless shrugs from Steve and Tony. With a mutter of annoyance, he straightened the lapels of his jacket one last time, then marched back over to his nook and took a seat.

"As it happens," he said once he was settled again, "the Tesseract incident is relevant to our conversation. I'm sure that those of you who were around back then remember Phase Two."

The senior members of the team all reacted with varying degrees of dismay. Sam, who _hadn't_ been around back then, was in the dark.

"For the newcomers," Tony said, "Phase Two refers to SHIELD's bright idea to use the Tesseract to build energy weapons." He turned to Fury. "Let me guess: this is the part where one of us says, 'I thought Phase Two was decommissioned', and then _you_ say…"

"We destroyed all of the casings," Fury said. "But it turns out, if you bleed off energy from an essentially unlimited source and compress it into a power core, destroying the core involves the sort of explosion that people can't help but notice. Our Science Division found a way to pack the cores in a substance that stabilized them and damped their energy signature. Since I couldn't destroy them, I did the next best thing and hid them. One file box swapped out for another, someplace too boring for anyone to look."

"_That's_ what the hybrids stole?" Steve asked.

"No. Stuttgart was a decoy. I sent out nine fakes plus the real thing. None of the teams knew what they were carrying."

"Who did know?"

"I did, and Hill did," Fury said. "That's all."

Tony said, "Obviously someone figured it out. Where's the real thing?"

Fury crossed his arms. "I suppose it's occurred to you that whoever's behind this is counting on you to lead them straight to their target."

"They've already killed ten people," said Steve. "We can't let them keep tearing through base after base. If we know where we're going, we can get there ahead of them, secure the area, and minimize the risk."

Steve was right, and they all knew it. Fury took a breath—

"Wait," Kel said.

He rolled his eye heavily and turned toward her. "I thought you were the one who was in a hurry. Want to pick a story and stick with it?"

"What is it?" Natasha asked.

Kel's head tilted slightly. She narrowed her eyes and focused an intense stare at the far wall. "I try to decide," she said. "The human lying flat on a small hill that way—" she pointed "—who listens to us, I think. Yes, they can hear us. Yours, or not?"

Fury and Maria exchanged looks.

"We don't have anyone on the perimeter," Maria said.

"Ah. Then this might be a problem."


	6. Chapter 6

Sam and everyone else in the room immediately turned to stare at Kel.

"How long has this person been listening?" Steve asked.

"The whole time."

"Why didn't you bring this up sooner?"

"I assumed that that one was trying to test my range," Kel said, and jerked her chin in Fury's direction. "Better not to respond. But once we started to talk about dangerous information, I needed to be sure."

"Did she just call me '_that one_'?" Fury asked.

Natasha said, "In her culture, that phrasing is considered polite."

"In her culture, apparently it's also considered polite to punch people in the face."

"Not _polite_, exactly," Kel said, "but allowed in certain circumstances, yes."

Steve turned to Vision and said, "We need to know who's out there. Can you—"

"Of course."

But he'd barely even lifted off the ground before Kel said, "Too late."

And again: they stopped, they stared.

"What do you mean?" Steve asked. "Why?"

"The spy is dead."

"_How_?"

Kel was still staring through the wall like it wasn't there. "It was far away and happened very fast," she said, "but I think their head exploded."

Oh, this mission just kept getting better and better.

"Vision," Steve prompted. Vision went airborne and disappeared through the ceiling.

"Before the rest of us go out there," Sam said to Kel, "if you've got anything else on your radar — and I mean _anything_ — now would be a good time to let us know about it."

"Nothing alive," she said. "No hybrids or other humans, as far as I can sense."

Fury, who never stopped being Fury, asked, "How far is that, by the way?"

"In your units? Over three pounds."

He shot her a steely look, then turned to Natasha. "Is she screwing with me?"

"Honestly, it could go either way."

Meanwhile, Tony had pulled up some kind of holographic projection from his watch, and was slowly scanning the perimeter.

"Yeah, I might have to rescind that reservation," he said when his display flashed red. "Your place has bugs." He tapped in some commands. Outside the window, there was a brief spark of electricity, then a little piece of debris fell from the top of the window frame.

"Terrific," Fury muttered.

"Getting sloppy, Nick," Tony said.

"Actually, I imagine that it's our fault," Jean said quietly. "He's discreet; we're conspicuous. All they would have had to do was track us until they determined our destination, then circle around in front of us to plant their surveillance." She gave a slight shrug. "At least, that's how I would have done it. If I had ever decided to do it."

Tony squinted at her. "Okay, just quickly reassure me that you didn't secretly engineer this whole crisis so that you could punch Nick Fury in the face."

She sighed. "No, Tony, I did not secretly engineer this crisis so that I could punch Nick Fury in the face."

"Did you secretly engineer this crisis for some other purpose?"

"We need to check the vehicles," Steve said, a bit louder than necessary, "and any of our gear that was out of our hands."

"Yeah, I'm on it," Tony said, and headed for the door. "I'll scan the cars right now. Gimme ten seconds."

Steve continued, "Kel, I assume you can tell the difference between a hybrid and an ordinary human, right?"

"Yes," she said. "It was a human on the hill. Not one of them, or I would have said something. And I didn't sense any hybrids all day. Either they used a human to do the work, or they kept a very careful distance."

"Hold on a second," Sam said. "This investigation hasn't even been going for a week, and you're saying it's already compromised?"

Jean gestured toward the window that had been bugged. "Given the evidence? I don't see another conclusion."

"Who the hell _are_ these guys?"

Everything they learned seemed to make the situation worse, and still the team had no damned clue who they were actually up against. Whatever organization was behind this was well funded and well connected. They had to have an agenda, didn't they? These power cores made for a hell of a prize, sure, but there were easier weapons to lay hands on if all you wanted to do was make a loud _bang_. There was a purpose behind all this. The team needed to figure out what it was, and damned fast.

Vision returned through the roof just as Tony returned through the door.

Tony went first. He tossed a handful of mangled electronic components onto the front desk and said, "So yeah. That happened."

"Team memo," Clint said. "Let's check for that next time."

Steve scowled. "Now we know," he said. "Vision?"

"There is a human body on a ridge approximately one point four kilometers west south-west," Vision said. "By my preliminary observations, the cause of death was a small explosive device positioned at the base of the skull. There was also an airborne drone surveilling the body, but it self-destructed as soon as I came within a kilometer. Nothing useful remains. To the best of my knowledge, there are no other personnel or devices in the area."

Tony said, "In other words, someone was listening remotely, got their information, and left no witnesses."

"Not all their information," Natasha said. "They still don't have the target."

"We're going to have to call this in," Steve said. "Have local authorities coordinate with the ongoing investigation. Even if it's compromised, our people need to know what's happening." He turned back to Fury. "I know you've still got an intelligence network. Is there anything else you can tell us?"

Fury folded his hands on the table, and paused a moment before replying. His jacket fell awkwardly around the sides of the handcrafted chair he was sitting in, and his scowl looked all the more cantankerous beneath the cheery floral drapes.

(Sam mentally tried on the image of Nick Fury on Venen-ka, with the log cabins and the ox-drawn carts and the sparkling horses. It was amusing until he added Jean to the scene, after which it became a lot less clear whether both of them would have made it home alive.)

"I built my career off of knowing more than the other guy," Fury said. "So when I say that I have no idea who's behind this, I want you all to understand that I'm taking it _personally_. It's a short list of genetics experts who could have pulled off this alien hybridization scheme. They're all accounted for. No one's gone missing, no one's taken a suspiciously timed six-month vacation or had a seven-figure transfer land in their bank account. So that's a dead end.

"A project like that would require certain specialized and expensive pieces of equipment. But because no one wants to make the Brenithi any angrier than they already are, biotech suppliers are falling over themselves to account for their inventories. No thefts, no major sales to anyone shady.

"So then you start running down the list of terrorist organizations with the resources to pull off something like this. Again, not a lot of candidates come up, and if someone was doing this to make a statement, you'd think they would have taken credit for it by now. So the answer, Cap, is no. I've got no leads for you, and it is pissing me off."

"How about backtracking the Brenith genetic material?" Natasha asked. "Are we anywhere on that?"

Tony replied, "Cambridge, Harvard and Kyoto are all claiming no security breaches and all tissue samples accounted for. Bruce is working on analyzing the blood sample that was left at the base, to see if he can isolate any factors that might identify its source. Maybe we pick up a clue that way, but it's going to take time."

Sam looked around the room. "So we're nowhere. Is that seriously what we're saying right now?"

Maria said, "All signs indicate that whoever's behind this is a brand new player." She glanced in Fury's direction. "Nick has an interesting theory about that, actually."

"What is it?" Steve asked.

"We're looking for a group that wasn't on the radar until relatively recently," Fury said, "with extensive financial and technological resources, who isn't afraid to step on Brenith toes. Every time I run it, I land on the same name. Wakanda."

Steve shook his head firmly. "No, I can't accept that. T'Challa would never sanction something like this."

"Maybe T'Challa doesn't know about it," Fury countered. "Do you think the entire country was happy with him when he unilaterally tossed them into the international spotlight? Could be this is someone's way of forming an opposition party."

"They certainly have the biotech capabilities," Natasha said reluctantly. "And they could have stolen DNA samples back when the Brenithi visited Wakanda last year."

Sam asked, "All this over a couple of power cores?"

"All this over the last remnants of the Tesseract," Fury replied, "which is probably the only piece of tech on Earth that could outmatch anything Wakanda's got."

"I don't know," Steve said. "It's a stretch."

"I hope I'm wrong," said Fury. "If T'Challa has a rogue faction on his hands, then the whole world has a serious problem."

Natasha said, "I suppose someone's going to have to go over there and ask him."

"All right, but in the meantime, let's secure those power cores," Tony said, and turned to Fury. "I'll put an end to this right now. Give me the coordinates. I can be there and back before morning."

Steve said, "If we want to draw the hybrids out, we all have to go together."

"Yeah, but I'm thinking that the cores should already be somewhere else before we do that. Just in case…"

"We lose?" Natasha suggested.

"The other side cheats."

"The other side watches us," Kel said, "and they know we got this far. If they see you leave, then it's very obvious why. Maybe they can't track you, but they can continue to hit decoy locations until we give them the real one."

"Kel has a point," said Steve. "This only works if they have a reason to go where we're leading them."

"Fine," Tony sighed. "We'll do it together. Your favorite theme. So — Nick? About that location?"

Fury leaned back in his chair. "Let's just say I put them in the last place anyone would look."

* * *

There were two team members whose emotional states were a source of concern. Natasha arranged for both of them to end up in her SUV for the trip back to Stuttgart, neither one in the driver's seat.

For the first twenty-five miles, the ride was dead silent.

It wasn't until they were approaching the German border that Natasha finally heard the indrawn breath from the back seat.

"I suspect it would ring hollow if I apologized for my actions," Jean said.

Clint snorted. "Just a bit, yeah."

"Then I won't. But I do… acknowledge that it was inappropriate to interrupt a business meeting for a personal vendetta."

"Your acknowledgement is acknowledged," said Natasha. "How's your hand?"

"Somewhat uncomfortable." In the rearview mirror, her reflection looked down and grimaced slightly as she presumably flexed her knuckles. "On any other day, I would have known better."

"Get Kel to look at it when we get back to the hotel."

"Yes."

Another ten silent miles went by. Then it was Clint, in the passenger seat, who took the quiet preparatory breath.

"I knew Zhang, too," he said. "Not well, but we crossed paths a couple times." Clint glanced back at Jean. "I guess this makes you big sister Jiyang."

"I didn't know that he spoke of me," Jean said.

"Not a lot. Most of us with families didn't like to mix 'em with the job. Occupational hazard. But from what I heard, he was proud of you."

Jean's voice turned a little rough. "Thank you," she said softly.

"You decked the wrong guy, you know," Clint added. His tone would have sounded casual to anyone who didn't know him well.

(This was a test. Natasha would be quite disappointed if Jean failed it.)

"Do you mean Loki?" Jean asked. "I won't deny having imagined… all manner of unlikely things."

"No. I mean me."

In the mirror, Jean's posture went stiff. "Clint…"

"I was down in the cavern when it happened," Clint said, still in that terrible faux-conversational tone. "Zhang didn't walk out. I did. Right next to the psycho demigod, in fact. I didn't kill your brother, but there are a hell of a lot of people I did kill. Betcha all those big sisters would have thanked you for getting your licks in."

Jean had a few false starts before she finally spoke again. "In the immediate aftermath," she said, "I collected reports obsessively. Including some that I imagine civilians weren't supposed to read. I'm aware of the… the basic sequence of events. Which is no substitute for having been there, I realize, and I won't pretend to understand every detail. But at no point did it…" She paused. "I have never, then or now, held you responsible for those things that Loki used your body to do. That's… you carry no debt to me. I promise you."

Clint grunted in acknowledgment, and his posture relaxed ever so slightly. "But if we end up in New Asgard," he added, "and you get it in your head to punch Loki in the face, just remember, the line starts here."

"No argument."

_Good job, Boss-Lady_.

With that out of the way, the atmosphere lightened up sufficiently to allow for normal conversation. The three of them shifted their focus from the past to the present. Their enemy was still dangerously nebulous; any plans they tried to make would be based on conjecture. Nevertheless, there were certain next moves that seemed to suggest themselves. If their guesses were correct, the night was by no means over.

It was past midnight when they got back to the hotel. Tony swept their rooms and their gear, and came up with several more surveillance and tracking devices. That was going to be an awkward conversation at some point. The investigation into the terrorist attack was a joint operation between several agencies — FBI, CIA, DHS, the usual suspects. None of them were going to take the news well that they very likely had an enemy agent in their ranks.

The team touched base briefly to make plans for the next day, then split up and headed for their individual rooms. Natasha changed her clothes, checked in with Steve to make sure they were on the same page, then headed back downstairs to the lobby just in time to spot Kel walking out the door.

Where empaths were concerned, covert surveillance was an exercise in futility. Entirely for her own amusement, Natasha followed Kel through the Stuttgart streets at what would have been a safe distance for a human, until Kel cut through an alley and vanished from sight.

Natasha continued her stroll down the sidewalk. Their hotel was at the heart of the downtown area; most of the stores were closed at that hour, but there were bars and clubs that were still doing business. Correspondingly, there was enough foot traffic around that Natasha's presence didn't automatically draw attention.

She paused at the next intersection, and Kel reappeared from around the corner.

"You know I could lose you if I wanted," she said.

"I know," Natasha replied. "But you didn't. So where are we going?"

Kel pressed her lips together with obvious disapproval. "You like to ask questions where you already know the answer, but you think that to say the answer will bother the other person."

"All right. We're hunting hybrids. I suppose it's occurred to you that this would be safer in a group."

Kel tapped her collar, where the innocuous gold design sat. "I'm protected. Dangerous for you, though. You have the information they want, and they know this."

"I guess I'll just have to trust you," Natasha said.

"You clearly don't, or you wouldn't follow me."

"You clearly don't trust us, or you wouldn't try to sneak away."

The observation caused Kel to break eye contact. The traffic light turned, and the two of them started to cross the street.

"This… is difficult for me," Kel said when they reached the other side. "I carry human blood. I'm the thing that showed them that it's possible to combine our species. To see these hybrids… human bodies with Brenith abilities added on… I watch them and it feels like they took _me_. Part of the idea of who I am. Took it and turned into an object. A tool. I wish the rest of you didn't have to see it."

Natasha nodded slowly as the issue moved into better focus. For Kel, this had to be like looking into a funhouse mirror, if her reflection wasn't just comically disproportioned but also went around murdering people.

"You didn't create the hybrids," she said, "and you're not responsible for their actions."

"I didn't create the hybrids," Kel echoed, not sounding all that persuaded. "I didn't create the portals, either. But Jean made her decisions because of what I am. People were hurt because of this. And now it happens again." She sighed. "It's personal for me. That these hybrids exist. I know this isn't a good idea, but I very badly want to prove that I'm stronger."

Her phrasing confirmed Natasha's suspicions. "You already have one on your radar."

"Of course. The team has to be watched. Since we removed the technology they used, one of them has to stay in range of the hotel."

"Okay," Natasha said. "So let's go prove it."

There was an art to blending into the background. A subtle combination of movement, posture and demeanor that caused the casual observer's eye to slide right past. When she wanted to, Natasha could cross a crowded room and be certain that not a single person would remember that she'd been there.

Every technique she would have used, Kel was doing precisely the opposite.

Admittedly, her face was naturally eye-catching. She had been heavily televised in the early days after First Contact, with significant media attention paid to her connection with the portal incident. Her five facial scars made her instantly recognizable. But even if passers-by couldn't see her face, they couldn't help but notice the powerful, deliberate strides, the arrogant tilt to her chin, and the swagger in her shoulders. Kel walked like she was on her way to kill someone, which in fairness had a decent chance of being accurate.

By virtue of walking next to her, Natasha was also attracting quite a bit of attention. The pedestrians they passed all struggled in the grip of two competing impulses: to get out of the way, and to snap a picture for social media.

Kel led them unhesitatingly east through the city. It seemed as though they had a bit of a hike ahead of them, so Natasha decided to make conversation.

"What do you feed on when you're on Earth?"

Kel shot her a disapproving look.

"Impolite?"

"Personal," Kel said. "For us, at least. I always have to remember, you humans turn your meals into these big social rituals."

"True. I guess solitary predators like you would view these things differently."

Natasha glanced at Kel's face, not bothering to hide the gesture. If this was a serious taboo, she would back off. Now was not the moment to be pushing buttons.

Fortunately, Kel's expression softened to something more indulgent than affronted. (Natasha had long suspected that her strategy for dealing with humans was to view them all as very young children who didn't know any better.)

"We keep prey on our properties," she said. "Embassies, consulates. This is where I stayed in New York before the _hirethe_ brought me to your compound."

Natasha nodded. "We know that the hybrids are capable of feeding like you do. I wonder if they need it, or if they could survive on human food."

"Hard to guess," Kel said. "Bruce might know." She held up her hand in warning. "Close now. Need to be careful."

Unfortunately, their destination seemed to be a hub of the Stuttgart nightlife. The building across the street sported a bright neon sign and a line at the door. Faintly, Natasha heard the pulsing beat of dance music that must have been deafening inside.

Not at all a desirable location for a major confrontation. Which, of course, was why their opponent had chosen it.

"If we do this," Natasha said, "there are going to be a lot of civilians at risk."

"Yes," said Kel. "Also risk if we don't. If we weren't here, I'm sure he would hunt tonight. But since we are here…" Her head tilted slightly. "One thing we have in common. He'll want to prove that he's stronger than me."

Natasha and Kel cut the line. The club had a bouncer — a giant of a man, as was typical of such places. He stepped forward to register an objection.

But he'd barely gotten a word out before Kel intercepted his outstretched hand with hers.

The effect was instantaneous. The bouncer's face went blank, and his posture relaxed. Kel left him standing with his eyes open, seemingly conscious but unresponsive.

The two women walked in. They used the same method to bypass the cover charge.

As expected, once they were inside the club, the music practically drowned out thought. Most of the space was taken up by the dance floor, which was packed with undulating bodies. Overhead, multi-colored strobe lights flashed and swept. Along the right-hand wall was the bar. Behind the dance floor were the seating areas: low tables to the left, and red cushioned booths along the back.

Kel led them around the perimeter of the dance floor toward the booths. A moment later, Natasha identified their target.

He was a young man, no more than twenty-five, with dark brown skin and dreadlocked hair hanging loose to his shoulders. He wore a black designer suit with a bright red silk shirt and no tie. The top two buttons of his shirt were undone, showing off the gold chain around his neck.

Red, black and gold. Brenith colors. An obvious taunt.

The booth where he sat had benches on three sides and a tall circular table in the middle. The man sat in the center, and an adoring audience of three young women surrounded him. Half-empty champagne glasses were scattered across the table, and the bottle still stood in its ice bucket.

When Natasha drew close enough to discern the conversation, she found that the man was speaking in flawless German. At the moment, he was focused on the blonde woman to his left, who hung on every word. The woman giggled, drunk and lustful, and he playfully touched her hand.

Kel and Natasha stopped beside the table, and the girls looked up. At first, they were just sizing up the competition. Then came the double-take at Kel's face. Then slow dawning recognition.

The man, on the other hand, slowly leaned back and spread his arms out across the back of the booth. "Look what we have here," he said in English, and looked Kel up and down. "It's the prototype."

He was ignoring Natasha for the moment, and Natasha returned the favor. In German, she said to the girls, "If I were you, I would leave now."

The brunette on the left, who was perhaps more drunk than the others, said to her friends, "Who the fuck is this?"

"That's the fucking Black Widow," the blonde replied, "and that half-human alien freak from the news. Adé, what the hell is going on?"

"Don't worry about it, sweetheart," said Adé, who now had a name. "These are just—"

The moment his hand reached for hers, Kel's wrist flicked, and her nanotech knife embedded itself in the table between them.

The girl let out a shriek, and that was the trigger that allowed panic to break through confusion like a faulty dam. All three girls flung themselves out from behind the table and fled into the club.

Adé, with a look of mild curiosity, reached for the hilt of the knife. Kel snapped her fingers, and it disassembled itself and flowed back to her hand.

He leaned back again and grinned. "I didn't expect you to be this afraid of me."

"You think this is fear?" Natasha asked.

"Oh, I know it is," he said. "I can smell it on you. It'll make the meal all the sweeter." With startling speed, he stood up on the bench and stepped forward onto the table, towering over them. "You have _no idea_ how much I—"

Which was the moment that half a dozen spikes punched through the wall of the club, towing thick cables behind them. (And it had been shaping up to be such a good villain speech, too.) The spikes crossed over Adé in both directions and buried themselves in the wall again. The cables pulled taut at the same time, yanking him back against the wall and trussing him up like a turkey.

This finally caught the attention of the rest of the club. The patrons in the neighboring booths jolted to their feet in alarm at the flying debris, took in the man suspended from the wall, and fled screaming. Soon the light show froze and the music cut out. The dance floor turned from a party to a mob as everyone bolted for the door.

Kel didn't give any overt signs that she'd been startled. She simply gave a quiet sigh, and said to Natasha, "I wish you told me what you planned."

"I didn't know, either," Natasha said. "We are learning from you, you know. If either one of us had been braced for an attack from behind the wall, our new friend here would have picked up on it, right?"

"Possibly," Kel said. "But now there's a different problem."

Adé worked his hand out toward one of the spikes that was buried in the wall. Natasha could hear the crackle of electricity as the spike delivered its charge, but Adé wasn't bothered any more than Kel had been. He got his fingers around it, gave a yank, and tore it clean out of the wall.

The cable fell slack. Adé gathered two more in his hand and tore them both out at once. Chips of drywall and brick pattered onto the bench.

Natasha took a step back. "Enhanced strength?"

"Yes," Kel said. "Much, much more than I realized."

"Okay, guys, time to send in that backup, and tell local authorities to clear the area if you haven't already."

Natasha wasn't wearing an earpiece, because a hybrid's empathic sense would have picked up on the sensation. Instead, there were cameras and mikes in her clothing, put in place before the team had left for Germany. Back at the hotel, Vision was the only one monitoring the feeds, and presumably he was the one who had been operating the drone. The hypothesis had been that he was far less empathically visible than the rest of them and wouldn't give anything away.

That part of the plan, at least, had worked like a charm.

Adé freed himself from the snare with minimal effort, and dropped back down to ground level. Then he snagged the booth's table by its central post, tore it loose from the bolts that had secured it to the ground, wound up and swung.

Kel shoved Natasha aside and stepped into the blow. Her personal shield lit up with a blinding gold flash and bounced the table back. It came away with a giant bite taken out of it, and fell apart in Adé's hand.

Adé just grinned and jumped back up onto the bench. He threw a swift donkey kick into the section of the wall that had been weakened by the spikes, and it fell back into the alleyway. Adé leapt after it.

Kel stretched out her right arm. The gold trim on her clothing — nanotech all — flowed down her shirt and formed into a blade that seemed to attach seamlessly to her forearm.

But Natasha had a trick, too. She replaced her earpiece, then tapped the little housing unit on her chest that had been a gift from Tony. Her own nanites swarmed down her arms and up her neck. Within seconds, a pair of gloves had appeared on her hands, and a helmet with a transparent visor had formed around her face and head.

("It's not armor," Tony had warned. "Not really. The headpiece is pretty strong, but I went for dexterity over rigidity in the gloves. They'll each take a few bullets or turn a blade, but don't push your luck.")

"—your location. Local police are evacuating the area. Repeat, the team is in position just outside your location. We have eyes on the target. Nat, do you copy?"

"Yeah, Cap," Natasha said, and drew her gun. "Approach with caution — this guy packs a punch." To Kel, she said, "Remember, we want him alive."

"Want everyone else alive. Might not get both."

The two of them followed Adé through the hole in the wall, and found themselves on the edge of a pedestrian plaza. The buildings on the perimeter were three and four stories tall, with large glass windows and walls of grey stone. From beyond them on all sides came flashing lights and the sounds of sirens — a credit to the response time of the Stuttgart police force. On the other side of the plaza, uniformed officers were shepherding the last few people to what they all hoped was a safe distance.

The plaza itself was full of Avengers.

Airborne were Tony, Rhodey, Sam and Vision. Clint was on a nearby rooftop, bow in hand. Steve, Jean and Wanda were on the ground, approaching from three sides, Steve with his shield held before him, Jean with her sidearm drawn, and Wanda with red light dancing in her palms. Except for Tony and Rhodey, who of course had their usual armor, all of them were wearing Tony's nanotech masks and gloves.

Ten of them. And between them all, pacing a slow circle in the center of the cobblestone square, was one man.

In Natasha's ear, Clint said, "We're about to do some serious property damage to another German city, aren't we. This country is gonna stop letting us in."

Adé didn't even try to break the perimeter or go after the civilians. Clearly this was exactly the confrontation he'd been hoping for.

"It's not too late to be smart about this," Steve said to him.

"I wanted it to be me," said Adé. "You have no idea. Practically had to kill a couple of the others for it."

"How many others?"

"More than you think," he said. "But this'll only take one." Adé spread his arms. "Come on — show me something!"

Even with Tony's additions, those of them in standard tactical gear were more vulnerable than those who were either encased in armor or not made of human flesh. While everyone else kept their distance, Vision, Tony and Rhodey moved in to intercept.

Then quite a lot of things went wrong.

Vivid bolts of electricity leapt from the corners of the buildings and slammed into Vision, pinning him in place midair like an angel atop a deadly Christmas tree.

In the same instant, a dozen projectiles shot out from hidden sources on the surrounding roofs. They looked like musket balls, except musket balls couldn't alter their own trajectories. They swooped through the air and targeted the two suits.

The crackle of electricity was deafening and the air picked up a tang of ozone. Tony and Rhodey both blasted a couple of the metallic balls out of the sky, but they were outnumbered and outmaneuvered. Each ball flattened out into a disk when it struck its target.

Tony got out a startled, "What the _f_—"

Then the two suits lost power and dropped out of the sky.

Wanda threw out her force fields and caught them both before they hit the ground. It saved them from a nasty landing, but it also cost her. In the brief window when her hands were pointed elsewhere, Adé pulled a pair of electrified handcuffs from inside his jacket and flung them at her. They homed in on their target just like the musket balls had, closed around Wanda's wrists, and yanked her clean off the ground. Her legs thrashed as the cuffs bore her thirty feet upward and pinned her hands below the overhang of a windowsill.

"Is that all you got?" Adé shouted. "Really? Is that all you _got_? _Come on_!"

Kel split off. Natasha lost sight of her.

Tony and Rhodes popped out of their dead suits thanks to emergency releases. Rhodey's leg braces were light enough that he could wear them under the suit for exactly such emergencies as this. Both of them immediately activated their backup gear — the same gloves and face masks as the rest of the team, plus Tony had a repulsor on each palm.

Steve said, "Tony, can you and Rhodes—"

"Yeah, we're on it."

Rhodey pulled a handgun from a compartment on his suit. He moved to cover Tony, who turned his back to the battlefield and pulled up a holographic display from his watch. Somehow Natasha doubted that the electric net trapping Vision would be as easy to hack as the bug at Fury's hotel had been, but that would have to be Tony's problem.

Forty feet higher, Vision was firing blasts into the walls of the buildings, trying to knock out whatever power source was keeping him pinned. But every time he struck the source of one electric bolt, it just shifted location.

(If Natasha's guess was right, the main power source was behind Wanda. That was where she would have put it.)

"All right," Steve said to the rest of them. "Let's try this again."

The net guns on the two suits were down, but Clint had a backup. From the rooftop, he fired.

With careless grace, Adé leapt high into the air. He cartwheeled clear over top of the net and snagged one of its bolts as he passed. His body completed the arc, and as he landed he whirled the net over his head and launched it at Steve, who just barely dodged in time.

Sam, the only flyer left, dived in through one of the gaps in the electric web overhead. Jean and Natasha tightened the perimeter on the ground.

Adé looked from one to the next, and smiled.

He leapt straight into the air with impossible strength — Steve couldn't have done it — and collided with Sam.

The pair of them swooped and rolled. Sam tried to kick him loose, but Adé was far stronger. His hand found Sam's mask. He started to squeeze.

"Somebody get this guy off me!" Sam snapped.

Natasha raised her weapon, but the target was moving too erratically. Any shot she fired could just as easily hit Sam.

Steve hurled his shield. It bounced off Adé's arm and momentarily dislodged his grip.

Sam threw a hard elbow into Adé's face, but it seemed to do nothing. Adé recovered immediately, seized Sam by the wrist, and started attacking the glove.

Glass shattered above Natasha's head and Kel came flying out a fourth-story window. Somehow she intercepted the pair of airborne bodies and clung on. From amidst the confusing tangle of limbs, a nanotech glove went flying, and Natasha's heart lurched when she saw Sam's bare hand.

But Kel grabbed the hand first and went into a dead hang. Her weight dragged Sam's arm down and out of Adé's reach. The jolt sent them spinning off in a new direction before Sam could compensate.

Adé changed tactics. He climbed around to Sam's back and tore a wing clean off the suit. The whole group plummeted.

They landed in a heap with Sam on the bottom, and Sam gave a yell of pain. Adé backhanded Kel and sent her tumbling, then went after Sam's bare hand again.

And dodged an instant before the twin shots rang out. Natasha and Jean were perfectly positioned to set up a crossfire. Natasha shifted her aim, tracking Adé's head, and fired again.

Adé threw himself aside, away from Sam, and continued to dodge the bullets with inhuman speed and accuracy. He backed off toward the edge of the plaza, then sprang twenty feet in the air, ricocheted off the wall, and aimed at Tony and Rhodey.

But Steve was there. The moment Adé landed, Steve plowed into him shield-first and knocked him back. Then he put all his weight behind the edge of the shield and slammed Adé in the face. Then he did it again. Again.

Under the cover of Steve's diversion, Jean dashed out to Sam, who had managed to sit up with one arm clutched tightly to his chest. Jean slung his other arm over her shoulder and pulled him back to relative safety around a corner.

Steve was still fighting Adé — or rather, Adé was still letting Steve pummel him. Body blows that could crack concrete bounced off his ribs, and he made no move to defend himself. Steve threw one last punch that knocked him back a few steps, then launched one of those fancy spinning kicks he liked so much straight into Adé's face.

Adé chuckled. Then he slapped the shield aside and kicked Steve square in the chest. The impact launched him clear off the ground and put him through a window.

Adé rounded on Tony and Rhodes again, but this time Clint put an explosive arrow between them and sent him scattering back.

A momentary distraction, nothing more. Adé regrouped and lunged — and from out of nowhere Kel sprang out to intercept. The blade on her arm sliced through the air, aimed right at his neck.

But she was painfully slow when matched with Adé's enhanced strength. He caught her arm effortlessly.

Kel wore no mask. Adé's free hand landed on her face. Then Kel grabbed his wrist. Bare skin to bare skin.

And with a jolt Natasha could feel down to her bones — like someone had hit the pause button on the entire universe — both of them froze.

"_Rhodes, now_!" Jean shouted.

Rhodey lined up the net gun that he'd wrested from his suit, and fired.

The net had been designed for Kel's strength and speed. Free, Adé could have avoided it easily.

But he didn't. Locked in each other's power, he and Kel were sitting ducks. The net enveloped the pair of them and knocked them to the ground.

Finally, _finally_, Tony managed to short out whatever power source had been holding Vision and Wanda captive. The light show vanished, and Wanda's electrified shackles released.

Wanda fell twenty feet before she caught herself on a cushion of magic. She'd barely landed when an explosion blew out the side of the building where she'd been suspended and sent shards of stone and glass flying in all directions. Wanda threw out a force field and contained the bulk of the debris.

The rest of the team was regrouping. Vision, under his own power again, landed next to Wanda. Steve climbed out of the window he'd been punted through, and retrieved his shield. Clint let himself down from the roof. Sam came back from around the corner where Jean had been covering him, a pistol in his good hand. Jean advanced beside him, and Natasha mirrored her. Rhodey dropped the net gun and drew his sidearm again; with his free hand, he gestured for Tony to stay behind him.

Step by step, the nine of them closed in on the net and the two struggling bodies.

Tony had made some design improvements since the training exercise. Between the heavy cables that made up the structure of the net was a lighter mesh that helped prevent errant hands from breaking through. It also meant that no one watching could tell exactly what was happening inside. All Natasha knew was that at least one person was doing their best not to scream.

Tony was the first to disengage his helmet. His face was gaunt.

It took a long time for the thrashing to stop. A long time.

Finally, the net went still. Natasha could hear harsh, labored breathing from inside. She couldn't tell whose.

Then came Kel's voice, so strained as to be almost unrecognizable. "Open it."

They looked at Steve, who gave a nod. "Stay sharp, everyone," he said.

Vision moved in and pulled a few of the bolts loose from the pavement.

The net shifted. Slowly, Kel began to crawl out.

"Stay back from her," Jean said. Her expression was still concealed behind her nanotech mask, but her voice was hoarse.

The warning was unnecessary.

Kel's blade was gone, reverted to the innocuous gold design on her shirt. The portion of her right forearm where it had been attached now looked like it had been crushed in a vice. Her forehead and the patch of her cheek where Adé had grabbed her had been stripped of skin like she'd been run over with a power sander. Spreading bloodstains on her clothes suggested far more extensive damage.

She pulled herself along the ground with her hand, dragging her legs behind her, until she was clear of the net.

Natasha asked, "Is he…"

"Alive," Kel rasped. "Asleep. Not for long. Wrap him _tight_."

"Vision only," Jean added. "Everyone else, keep your distance."

"Kel?" Tony crouched down to her eye level. "Tell us what you need."

Her breath was coming in shuddery gasps. "Berlin. Embassy. Fast. I'll kill the next thing I touch."

"Not a problem. We were headed that way anyway."


	7. Chapter 7

After the fight came the cleanup.

Vision left immediately with Kel under one arm and the hybrid under the other. They were headed for the Quinjet, destination Berlin. Tony scanned the plaza for any more hidden surprises and came up empty, after which Steve released the scene to the local cops. Then the team headed back to the hotel to clean themselves up a bit and decide on their next move.

The two suits were dead as multi-million dollar doornails. Tony got a couple of drones to fly them back; they were still standing on his balcony. The metal disks that had disabled them had been instantly recognizable. The implications… were murkier.

That was why he'd asked Rhodey and Steve to meet him in his room (which had been thoroughly de-bugged beforehand, Tony would stake his reputation on it). This required a conversation.

"You know what we're looking at, right?" Tony asked.

Rhodey stroked his lip as he studied the pair of disks in Tony's hand. "I know what we're supposed to think we're looking at."

"I don't," Steve said. "What are you talking about?"

"This is Wakandan tech," Tony said, and circled the pesky little things in his fingers like casino chips. "First of all, they hacked my suits. _No one_ hacks my suits, except maybe the country that's been secretly a century or more ahead of the rest of us for all of recorded history. Maybe."

"I thought no one said 'hack' anymore," Rhodey said, because he was exactly the kind of jerk who would hang onto an offhand quip for over five years.

"_Second_, Wakanda's national engineering design group is headed by T'Challa's sister, who quite rightly likes to show off. The first time Rhodey and I visited the palace, she accidentally-on-purpose burst in on us with a couple of these things in tow to show him her improved targeting systems."

Steve glanced over his shoulder, apparently by reflex, and lowered his voice. "Are you starting to think that Fury was right?" he asked.

Well, that was the question, wasn't it.

"I'm starting to think that we owe T'Challa a face-to-face before this piece of news goes beyond the team," he replied.

This, unsurprisingly, caused some raised eyebrows.

"Look, we're about to split up, right?" Tony said. "One group goes to Berlin with the prisoner, and the other stays here to wrap up with the Army base."

"That's right," said Steve.

"Yeah. And I figure most of the eyes will be on the Berlin contingent. Stuttgart has done its job as far as our hybrid friends are concerned. Now they're just waiting for us to lead them to their prize."

"Unless they try to speed things along by grabbing one of us while our forces are divided," Rhodey said.

"Fair point," said Tony. "We'll have to make sure each group has a heavy hitter, then — Vision is already going to Berlin, which means Wanda stays here. But what I'm saying is, this is the perfect opportunity for Rhodey to slip off quietly. If we're lucky, you might even make it to Wakanda before the other side puts two and two together. And Steve?" he added. "I'm serious about keeping this quiet. Don't mention it to the JTTF folks when you get to Berlin."

Steve frowned. "I'm not sure about that. The Avengers aren't exactly home free when it comes to rebuilding public trust. If we get caught in a lie on our first mission after reinstatement…"

"I know." Tony juggled the little disks in his hand again. "But here's the thing: the other side blew up their spy drone, they blew up their _spy_, and they blew up the power source behind that electric net. Why do all that and leave these intact?"

"How many people would recognize this tech?" Steve asked. "It sounds like you only saw it by accident."

"Maybe we weren't supposed to piece it together right away," Tony said. "Or maybe this really is the lucky break it looks like, and now we know something they think we don't. But either way, if this problem is about to land in T'Challa's back yard, I say he deserves to hear about it from us first."

It took a couple seconds, but finally Steve gave a reluctant nod. "All right. Rhodey, if you're on board with this, then I'll cover your departure."

"Yeah, I'm in," said Rhodey. "If the hybrids have Wakandan tech, then we need some Wakandan assistance and fast."

"There's just one hitch," Tony said. "Since we're going for discretion, I can't loan you the jet. Sorry, buddy, but you're flying commercial. Unless — Ramstein Air Base is just down the road, right? Maybe you can get them to give you a loaner."

Rhodey rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I'm sure T'Challa would love having a piece of US Air Force hardware landing in his capital city. Don't worry, I'll work something out."

* * *

Loki did in fact begin to help out around the camp.

Well, after a fashion. He showed up, at least. Some of the time. And while he was present, on balance, he helped more than he hindered.

(They did go through a phase in which every hammer that Thor picked up immediately turned into a frog. But he and Loki came to an agreement on that: to wit, Loki would knock it off and Thor would not kick him through a wall.)

In any event, another day had come to a close. Thor concluded his meeting with the planning team and approved their proposal for the next week's labor. Then it was time to retire.

His path back to his cabin took him past the feasting hall, and there he abruptly stopped. Bucky was perched on the roof.

Interesting. With an easy jump, Thor landed on the roof as well. He climbed the shingles (newly installed just that morning) until he'd reached Bucky's position, near to the peak.

"Hey," said Bucky. He was staring out over the northern portion of New Asgard. It was a relatively uninteresting piece of land, consisting mostly of space for livestock, with the perimeter fence beyond.

"I thought you'd left for the night," Thor said, and settled down beside him.

"Everyone did." Bucky jerked his chin fractionally in the direction that he was staring. "Do you see that guy walking through the field toward us?"

Thor narrowed his eyes. There was indeed a man — an Asgardian — walking down the lane between two goat pens, seemingly on his way back to the cabins.

There were so many faces and names. Unless, of course, they were viewed as the last remaining survivors of an entire race. In that light, there were so few faces and names. It seemed the least Thor could do to learn them all.

"I see him," Thor said. "That's… Brant, I believe. He lost a father, wife and sister to Hela's army. Only his daughter survived."

"Yeah," said Bucky. "The only problem is, Brant and his daughter are in their cabin. They've been there for over an hour."

Thor looked at him sharply. "You're certain?"

Bucky nodded. "I've suspected it for a while, but this is the first time I could catch him at it. Loki disguised himself as this guy so that he could leave the settlement. Any idea what he might be doing?"

Thor grit his teeth. "Let's find out."

He knew from experience that asking Loki what he was up to would be a waste of breath. Instead, Thor led the way south to the open field where the _Statesman_ had been, where Loki's escape pod now sat. Unsurprisingly, the door did not respond when he keyed in the entry code.

He sighed, dug his fingers in between the panels of the door, and forced them open.

This was the first time he had been inside his brother's so-called chambers, and he braced himself for something bizarre — a miniature throne room, perhaps, or a hoard of treasure. Instead, the sight that met his eyes was perhaps the only thing that could have genuinely surprised him: a simple residence, very much like his own cabin.

Thor took a few slow steps into the room, looking for… well, in truth he wasn't certain. Stolen property, perhaps, or something visibly out of place. But each sight he took in was as mundane as the last. A viewing screen hung on the wall. Beside it was an alcove with a bowl of fruit and a water pitcher. A few books were stacked at the foot of the cot. There was nothing more.

"Does New Asgard not believe in knocking?"

Thor turned to find Loki, now back in his own form, standing in the open doorway, and somehow the futility of asking a direct question flew right out of his head.

"Where have you been?" he demanded.

Loki rolled his eyes. "Oh, you know me, brother. I was off sowing discord and plotting betrayal."

"Answer me, Loki."

"I was taking a _walk_," he spat, and brushed past Thor to sit down on the cot with his legs outstretched. "I don't see what possible business it is of yours."

Bucky had not followed Thor inside. From his position beyond the threshold, he asked, "Do you always take your walks using someone else's face?"

Loki looked over his shoulder in feigned surprise. "The mortal is asking me questions now. How brazen."

"You know that you aren't permitted to leave the settlement," Thor said. "I gave King T'Challa my word that—"

"That _what_?" he snapped. "That you would keep me imprisoned?"

"That you would do no more harm to this world than you already have."

Loki jerked his head in Bucky's direction. "Your little pet there killed more of his kind than I ever did. And this world faces a far greater threat than me."

He switched on the viewscreen.

The program that appeared was a Midgardian news report. Earlier that evening, it seemed, the Avengers had faced down one of their mysterious enhanced opponents, who were now known to be hybrids of human and Brenith biology. The team had captured their enemy, suffering relatively little damage in the process.

"Quite a perverse idea, isn't it," Loki said. "Mixing Brenith and human blood. j'Brenithi are so convinced of their own superiority, after all. It was guaranteed to anger them. One wonders what the perpetrators hoped to gain."

"The humans are handling it," Thor said. "And you still haven't answered my question. Are you disguising yourself so that you can enter Wakanda?"

"And if I am?" Loki asked. "What will you do?"

Damn him. Loki _knew_ just how close they'd come to being denied sanctuary on this planet at all, and he knew that the resistance they'd faced had arisen because Thor had refused to turn him over to face Earth's retribution. Thor did not want to choose between his brother and his people — he would have thought that his actions had made that clear by now — but if that was truly the position that Loki pushed him into…

"If your actions endanger our people's refuge here," Thor said tightly, "then I will do whatever I must to protect them."

He wished he could be sure of what he read in Loki's eyes. There was a flash of something, covered up quickly. Surprise? Anger? Betrayal, perhaps? (Though that last one would have been almost amusing, given their history.)

Whatever the reaction had been, it was gone in an instant. Loki gave a careless shrug and returned his attention to the screen. "Very well, brother," he said, sounding almost pleasant. "If it's for the good of Asgard? Here I will sit."

It was clear that no further conversation was forthcoming. Thor departed the pod, and the door closed behind him.

Bucky said quietly, "Just like that?"

"With Loki, it's never just like that," said Thor. "I'll speak to King T'Challa in the morning. Perhaps he can find out what my brother has been doing."

* * *

Tony wasn't exactly thrilled to be back at JCTC headquarters again. His last visit had been two years ago by the calendar, and almost twice that by his personal clock, but the memory still sucked. Just down the hall was the conference room where he'd come to Steve in the aftermath of Bucharest and all but _begged_ him to…

Well. Water under the bridge. A whole lot of bridges ago. This time he and Steve were there as allies, with a solid team at their backs.

There was one team member in particular whom Tony wanted to focus on just then. The elevator dinged, and she put in her appearance.

Kel looked several orders of magnitude better than she had when she'd crawled out of the net. She was back on her feet, for starters, with no more missing skin or visibly broken bones. She'd also exchanged her bloodstained clothes for a pair of dark grey trousers and a black shirt that bore the typical Brenith looping gold design. (All of which, apparently, was nanotech. Tony wondered if the average Brenith citizen habitually wore nanite weapons everywhere they went, or if that privilege was reserved for VIPs.)

He grinned and stood up to meet her as she stepped off the elevator. "Hey," he said. "You feeling better? You look better."

"I feel better, yes," she said. "Does the next meeting start soon?"

"Soon, but not this instant." Tony gestured to the chair next to his. "Do you want to sit for a minute, relax a bit?"

"All right," Kel said. The two of them settled back down, side by side.

They were in a small waiting area next to the bank of elevators. Two more chairs sat against the wall across from them. Behind Tony's head was a wide glass window, and to his left were the walls, also mostly glass, of the various meeting rooms on this level. (Yes, the Intelligence headquarters was architecturally transparent. Very cute.) Steve, Jean and Natasha were presumably wandering around somewhere, though Tony hadn't spotted them yet. Vision was downstairs on the detention level, supervising the prisoner.

Tony was glad for the lull in the action. Somehow, in all the rush to respond to this new threat, he and Kel hadn't gotten a single second to catch up.

"I realized that I never apologized," Kel said abruptly. "About the horse."

"Oh." Tony huffed in remembered annoyance. "Yeah, that was… _very_ impolite. But I suppose I got you back with the cuffs and the net. I don't claim any more debt. Is that how you say it?"

"Close enough," she said. "Did you think I would kill the horse to win a game?"

If a human had asked the question, Tony would have expected the tone to be wounded, or accusatory. But with Kel it came out completely neutral, like she was only asking out of mild curiosity.

Which somehow made it even more embarrassing, because in that moment when Tony had seen George down…

"I didn't think you'd done it yourself," he said. "But you did get Ursula riled up before you turned her loose, and if she'd run into George in that state…. I don't know. I wasn't sure."

"Yes," Kel said. "This uncertainty is what we needed for the plan to work. But it was unkind."

"Well. I'm willing to forgive and forget." Tony turned a little more toward her and leaned one arm along the back of his chair. "We haven't seen a lot of each other lately. I'd hoped we would get some time to talk at Steve's party, but we both know how that one turned out."

"It was a good party, until this happened," Kel said. "I was happy to finally meet Pepper."

"Yeah, my girlfriend and my therapist making small talk in the buffet line. Not at all awkward."

Her brow furrowed in concern. "Tony, I—"

But he'd known it was an asshole remark as soon as it had left his mouth. "No, I'm sorry," he said quickly. "That wasn't fair. I know you wouldn't…"

"No. I wouldn't."

"I know. I'm just…" An unaccustomed wave of shyness hit, and Tony ducked his head sheepishly. "This is one of the things I probably would have mentioned back at the party, if I'd found the right moment for it. Pepper and I are… we've started talking about getting married. There hasn't been an actual, official proposal yet, but… conversations have occurred that have had marriage in them. The idea exists as a mutually acknowledged… thing."

Kel's whole face lit up in a brilliant smile. "Congratulations," she said. "That's wonderful."

"Yeah. It really is." Tony could feel a big dopey grin forming on his own face, but that was okay. "Wonderful. Only slightly terrifying. It's the sort of thing that… I think I never let myself realize how much I wanted it until… and now I can see this possible version of the future where I'm _obscenely_ happy. I can't even cope with it sometimes — it's like staring into the sun." A tangential thought occurred, and he asked, "Does your culture have marriage?"

"Not like yours does," she said. "You seem to use marriage to do a lot of things together that we do separately. We have political alliances, social agreements to produce and claim children, clans and family lines for support and friendship, and adults can give each other physical pleasure if they want. Not the same person for all these things at once, yes? Your system seems very complicated." She shrugged. "'Solitary predators', Natasha called us. Very different from you. But even if I don't completely understand, I can tell that you're happy."

Tony chuckled. "Yeah. Getting there. Actually getting there. But believe it or not, I'm also interested in talking about you. You're the one who's had all the excitement, what with the world tour and the getting pretty famous. What's it like to have a sizable portion of the planet speaking your name?"

"This isn't exactly how it works for us," Kel said. "But I know what you try to say." Her expression sobered. "I like your world. Before the portals, I lived with Jean. Or sometimes with other friends of hers. It was good to meet people. To learn about the ways that humans do things. What I do now is… different."

"How's that?"

"I visited many of your countries," she said. "Met many political leaders. They look at me with horror, because I'm one of the 'tall red guys' in one of your bodies, and suddenly they realize that the only thing they fear more than an alien is an alien they can't identify. I smile while they stare. Then I go to another room and wait while the _hirethe_ discuss, negotiate, make decisions. Then we move to the next country, and it starts again."

Tony winced. "I'm really sorry. Was it everyone you met?"

"Not every person. But every time." She shrugged. "Kith is _ti-hireth_, and can use me in whatever way is best for j'Brenn."

"Did your father pick up on how rough it was for you?"

"We're empaths. Of course he did. But _shoratha_ endure. And Tor also follows orders." Kel leaned back in the chair. "After the tour was over, I came back to your Washington District of Columbia city, to talk about humans to those we send to work in the embassy. New York also, and the group that goes to the United Nations. This was easier. To be with other j'Brenithi for a while."

"And then you went home for a bit, you told me."

"Yes. Tor needed someone to check on his territory while he was busy on Earth. This was a nice break, too. Then I came back here, and all of this started." Her hand indicated their surroundings.

Tony had been right about one thing, at least: Kel was unhappy. There'd been something a bit off about her demeanor from the moment this mission had begun. He'd first noticed it after the thing with George, once he'd calmed down enough to stop and think it over. Kel was competitive, but she wasn't the type to endanger innocent lives, be they human or alien equine. The way she'd deliberately antagonized Bruce also felt off, in retrospect. Then had come that _ridiculous_ stunt she'd pulled with Wanda, then the knife to Hill's throat, and finally the way she'd tried to slip off and take down the hybrid all on her own

Luckily, Jean had seen that move coming, and the team had managed to plan around it.

Tony occasionally had to remind himself that he didn't know Kel nearly as well as she knew him. Back on Venen-ka, when his accumulated issues could no longer be contained by sheer stubborn force of will, she'd been the compassionate ear that it turned out he'd desperately needed, and he'd told her… everything. Well and truly every last thing, to a degree that still staggered him when he thought it over too closely.

But it didn't run the other way. It couldn't have, at the time. The whole arrangement had only worked because she'd been a neutral sounding board, able to absorb his fears and traumas with equanimity. Consequently, Tony didn't exactly have a detailed psych profile to which to compare Kel's present behavior. All he had was this vague, nagging sense that something wasn't quite right.

"It can be hard to switch hats," he said.

Kel frowned. Her eyes went up to his hairline, where obviously no hat was to be found. "It can?"

"Metaphorically," Tony said. "By 'hats', I mean 'roles'. You were the medic and the therapist, and I was the patient. That's not an easy thing to walk back. It's already a stretch that we're friends. So I do understand that maybe I'm not the one you want to talk to. But I can't shake this sense that our current problem is sort of… hitting you where you live a little. Am I wrong?"

Her gaze dropped. Quietly, she said, "No."

"And if there's one thing I learned from you, it's that there's no shame in needing some time to work things through. Or in needing a bit of help to do it."

Kel gave a slow sigh. She sagged forward and leaned her elbows on her knees, looking at the floor. "I wanted this," she said. "For humans and j'Brenithi to meet. I argued for it. Pushed for it. Because I thought that it would make both sides better. But what happens now isn't what I wanted."

"Hey," Tony said softly, and laid a cautious hand on her back. "We'll fix this. We're close now. This guy we've got downstairs is going to give something up. Then all we need to do is secure the Tesseract power cores, backtrack the hybrids to their source, and put them out of business. We're the Avengers. This is what we do."

The skeptically arched eyebrows she shot him were more than a little hurtful.

"All right, I will grant that we haven't made a terrific showing of ourselves yet," he said. "That strength of his was a nasty surprise. How come you don't have that?"

"Made differently, I suppose."

"Well, they had one chance to surprise us, and they blew it," said Tony. "Now that we know what they've got, we'll be able to compensate. I've got a few more ideas in the works."

"Yes," Kel said. It was one of the least convincing things he'd ever heard her say.

Though the words were pitiful in their inadequacy, they were all he had to offer. "Kel. It's your choice, but I'm here, okay?"

Kel's stare at the floor intensified. Her hand flexed into a fist. There was something she wanted to tell him — the weight of it seemed to warp the space around them. Beneath Tony's hand, her back shifted as she took a breath.

What she said to him was, "Tor is downstairs."

Tony blinked in surprise. "Tor, your father?"

Kel turned to him sharply and her expression darkened. "_Tony_. I _gave_ you my name as Kel verak Tor, shorath j'Brenithi. To question if I am truly of Tor's line is _incredibly_—"

"Sorry, sorry!" he yelped, and held up the backs of his hands in the sanctioned Brenith fashion. "Not questioning. Declarative statements only." He stretched forth his hand and declared, "Your father is here."

Dubiously, Kel echoed, "My father is here."

"Okay. Then let's go make a good impression."

* * *

Vision had alerted Steve when the prisoner, Adé, regained consciousness, well before the Quinjet reached Berlin. He'd also reported that Adé was a lot less eager to take him on without the opportunity to lay traps in advance. The remainder of the flight had passed without incident. On Steve's instructions, everyone with a human body had cleared out of the JCTC building while Vision had escorted Adé from the Quinjet to the detention level.

Now Adé was locked in the same style of confinement booth where they had once held Bucky. There had been a few modifications made over the years: Adé's wrists and ankles were secured by inch-thick metal restraints, and another metal band stretched across his chest.

(Somehow, Steve still didn't think it would be enough if Adé decided that he wanted to be elsewhere. His strength was monstrous.)

Vision was standing guard outside the cell, while Steve observed on a monitor upstairs. Key personnel were slowly being allowed back into the building, but Steve had strongly recommended that they keep the population to a minimum while Adé was on the premises. Those of the team who had accompanied Steve to Berlin — Tony, Natasha, Jean and Kel — were due to join him shortly.

In fact, footsteps from behind him indicated that he was about to have company.

"Hello, Steve," Jean said.

The viewing screen on the wall was more than big enough for both of them to see. Steve took a step to one side anyway, silently inviting her to join him.

"Is this your first visit to the Joint Counter Terrorist Centre headquarters?" he asked.

"Why, yes it is," she said dryly. "How about you?"

"My second," he said. "They brought Bucky here after the UN bombing. I hope things go a little better this time."

Jean nodded.

That, Steve realized, had derailed the conversation somewhat. "We haven't had a chance to talk today," he said.

She sighed and dropped her chin. "Yes. I'm… quite ashamed of my outburst earlier."

"You mean the one where you punched Nick Fury in the face?"

"_God_. This really is our new punching story, isn't it." Jean pinched the bridge of her nose. "All right. Whatever dressing-down you have planned, I'm well aware that I deserve it. Please proceed."

"I'm sorry about your brother," Steve said instead. "I wish I'd had the chance to meet him."

She glanced his way quickly, and her expression softened. "I'm sure he would have liked that."

"Are you holding up okay?"

There was caution in her eyes, like she still expected Steve to yell at her. "I won't lose control of myself again, if that's what you mean."

"It wasn't, exactly." Steve could feel his face going warm. When it came to team leadership responsibilities, this one was not his forte. "I just hope you know that your friends are here for you. If you need us."

It took a minute, but finally Jean gave a faint smile. "Thank you, Steve. I appreciate that."

"But please don't punch Nick Fury in the face anymore."

She sighed. "I won't."

"Also, you handled yourself well back there in the plaza," he said. "Not that anyone would doubt your skills after Venen-ka, but…"

"But swinging a spear at a giant Minotaur in an alien universe is rather different from firing a handgun at a fellow human being on my own planet," Jean said. "Yes. I noticed that, too." She exhaled slowly. "I would like for this to be almost over. Naive of me, no doubt."

"We'll see what our friend downstairs has to say."

Jean's head turned; she must have caught the approaching footsteps that Steve had already been tracking. A moment later, Tony and Natasha came into view from around the corner. The third set of steps, however, did not belong to Kel.

Ross — the other Ross — ignored Steve entirely and focused on Jean. "So you're her," he said.

"Every single time," Tony muttered.

"I'm her," Jean said. "And you are?"

"Everett Ross," he said.

"Yeah, it's another Ross," said Tony. "You can never have too many Rosses. This one might or might not mention it, but he's CIA."

"Ah."

"You got a little bit famous after the portals," Ross said to Jean. "Or at least your alias did. _Jean_. A six-foot-plus Chinese-American woman, late forties to early fifties, who travels the world recruiting enhanced individuals for reasons unknown — now, you'd _think_ that a person with that description would not be difficult to find. That someone would have a file on you somewhere, or your description would ping someone's radar, or your face would turn up at a border checkpoint. And yet, in two years? Nothing. You're a cipher. You wouldn't care to explain how you managed that, would you?"

Jean replied, "Thoroughly, through significant expenditure of time, money and effort."

Ross scoffed. "That's cute. And now that I've found you, my superiors tell me I can't detain you. The Brenithi somehow scored you a Get Out Of Jail Free card. I hope we don't all come to regret that decision."

Jean tilted her head slightly. "Interesting, though not particularly surprising."

"What's that?"

"Your assumption that, because I have information you lack, I must perforce be using it for nefarious purposes."

"If you were hiding your grandmother's secret recipe for dumplings, I could let it go," Ross said. "When you're hiding the identities, locations and abilities of… how many enhanced?"

"Oh, I stopped counting after ten thousand," said Jean. "My memory is spectacular."

"Of an unknown number of potential threats to national security, _that's_ when people like me get antsy."

"As you attempt to compile your dossier on me," Jean said, "feel free to add that one of my grandmothers lived in China and very likely did have a recipe for dumplings, though I never met her and couldn't say for sure. My other grandmother was Swiss, and truth be told, her cooking was terrible."

"I'll do that," said Ross.

"You make friends wherever you go, don't you?" Tony said to her.

"I do my best," Jean replied. "I thought Kel was with you?"

"Yeah, she'll be along any second. She just had to go downstairs to, uh… meet her father."

Steve looked over sharply. "Tor is here?"

"According to her radar, anyway."

"While we're waiting," Natasha said, "here's a piece of bad news. Video analysis confirms that our prisoner wasn't involved in the Stuttgart attack. His height and build don't match either of the terrorists."

"So there's at least two more of those things out there?" Ross asked. "And just one of them was almost enough to stop the lot of you?"

"Any luck on an ID?" Steve asked Natasha.

"No hits on fingerprints or facial recognition," she said. "Someone's been very careful."

"I can probably guess the answer," Tony said, "but how about our headless Swiss spy?"

"No luck with fingerprints there, either," Natasha said. "Facial recognition and dental records are obviously out. A forensics team is going over the body, but I doubt they'll find anything useful."

Distantly, the elevator dinged, and the last two members of their party approached. Kel's strides were short and brisk compared with her father's. As usual, Tor had to duck low to make it through the doorway.

"Good morning," Steve said to Tor. "We weren't expecting you. How was your trip?"

Tor, whose manners left something to be desired, ignored this and stepped past him toward the screen. "I see that at least some progress is being made," he said. "Tell me, Kel, is this team of yours a help or a hindrance? It seems to me that the majority of the work has been yours."

"We gained information about the enemy," Kel said. "Their abilities, their goals. We captured one of their fighters. All of us did this."

Tor gave an indulgent chuckle, and turned to Steve. "Does the answer meet with your approval, Captain Rogers? In our tradition, a good soldier shares in the successes and the failures of her squadron."

Interplanetary diplomacy notwithstanding, Steve did _not_ like this guy. "Kel has nothing to prove to us about being a good soldier," he said stiffly. "And, with all due respect, I don't see any failures here."

"A charming English phrase, 'with all due respect'," Tor replied. "Blatant in its insubordination. z'Brel is a far more subtle language. Very well — speak to me of your successes."

Natasha, who could clearly tell that Steve was about to say something impolitic, answered, "The target was detained with no civilian casualties and relatively little damage to property. Thanks to a source, we know what the group's ultimate objective is, and we have a lead to pursue concerning their origins. I expect that the prisoner will provide more information."

"I see," Tor said, and refocused his attention on the screen. "Very well. You may proceed."

Steve's lip twisted. "Thanks."

Steve and Kel had planned to speak to Adé alone, but now that Ross was here, there was no shutting him out. After a quick discussion to confirm their strategy, the three of them took the elevator down to the detention level, where Vision greeted them with a nod.

They spread themselves out in front of the containment cell, where their prisoner looked very comfortable for a guy who was bolted into a chair.

Adé glanced upward. "You're four bodies short," he said.

"They stayed in Stuttgart," Steve replied.

"And we've got a new guy, and one of _them_. I'm flattered."

Ross said, "Don't be."

"Oh, it's like that, is it?" said Adé. "All right, if we're being straight with each other—"

He jerked his wrists and the huge metal cuffs shattered. A kick freed his ankles just as easily. He surged forward, snapping the band across his chest, and threw a hard thrust kick into the front wall of the containment cell that sent it flying clear across the room.

But Vision was ready. He caught the plexiglass panel and flung it aside, then flew toward the open wall of the cell, the stone on his brow lit up in warning.

Adé did not press his luck. He raised his hands in surrender and backed off. "I'm just saying," he said. He sat back down again, and leaned back casually with his ankles crossed. "So what do you want to talk about?"

"Let's talk about your bosses," Ross said. "Specifically, I'm wondering how they react to failure. Because, let's face it, you screwed this one up royally."

Adé's expression wavered. "They told us the prototype was weak," he said. "I had the rest of you. Had you _cold_. But the girl had some bite to her."

Kel snarled a caustic response in z'Brel.

"Yeah, they just put the alien shit in my veins. I don't actually speak the language."

"No matter how it happened," Ross said, "you lost. And, theatrics aside, you know you're not getting past that guy." He hooked his thumb at Vision. "If I were in your position, I'd be asking myself how long it'll take before my bosses decide they prefer a dead asset to a captured one."

"I'm dead either way," Adé retorted. "You know why Big Red's up there, right? To remind you of the party line — all us _hybrids_ are slated for execution."

"Not if we can undo it," said Steve. "The _hirethe_ want the hybrids destroyed. Removing the Brenith genetic material would accomplish that just as well as killing you. We can have the best scientists on the planet working on the problem, and we can protect you in the meantime. But you need to give us a reason."

Adé fell silent for a long moment.

The next time he spoke, it was very quiet. "Ask me something," he said.

"How many of you are there?" Steve asked.

"Twenty, last I heard. They made us in batches of five. I'm Gen Four. The last group. Most of us are just in it for the money — and let me tell you, the money is spectacular. The deal was, we go through the procedure, we do a couple of jobs, then keep the fee and the powers. It's Gen One you need to watch out for. Not as physically strong as us — took 'em a while to get that right — but they've had the most practice at the teleneuro stuff, and they're the true believers. Whatever the bosses are planning, Gen One is with them for the long haul. The Gen Ones trained us, and they carry orders and bring us tech."

Steve asked, "And the bosses are?"

"Don't know, never saw 'em, never sensed 'em, never asked."

Ross scoffed. "You expect us to believe that?"

"What, you want me to make something up?" Adé snapped. "When someone offers up an eight-figure payday, tactical ignorance is part of the package."

Unfortunately, it could have very well been the truth. Like Natasha had said, their opponents were very careful. "Where were you trained?" Steve asked.

But Adé shook his head. "Uh-uh. Maybe you bleed me dry of intel and hand me over to the Reds anyway. You want more? I want a deal. In writing. Transfer to US custody and a guarantee that I stay there. Until then, I'm done talking." His mouth snapped shut, and his expression went blank.

Well. It was a beginning, at least.

Vision remained on guard duty, while Steve and the others rejoined the rest of the team upstairs.

"He's a barrel of laughs, isn't he," said Tony.

Natasha said, "Do we have any reason to believe a word he says?"

"The fear was real," said Kel. "He wasn't supposed to lose and he knows it. I didn't sense any deception."

"I for one am intrigued to learn of your plan to reverse the conversion process," Tor said. "An interesting concept. Strange that it hasn't been mentioned before."

Internally, Steve winced. Tor's appearance had thrown a last-minute wrench into his interrogation plan. The offer of an escape route was the only piece of leverage he had. If Tor vetoed the idea, there was every chance that Adé would be able to sense that further conversations were occurring under false pretenses.

"You want the hybrids destroyed and so do we," he said. "But that doesn't necessarily mean killing the individuals involved. Removing their abilities would satisfy your condition just as well, wouldn't it?"

"Perhaps, if you have the capability to do so — a supposition for which I currently have no evidence."

"Bruce Banner works on the problem now," said Kel. "The green one you stopped at the performance, yes? When he's human, he's one of the best on Earth in the life sciences, I'm told."

"I will have to discuss it with Kith and Bri," Tor said. "In the meantime, how do you plan to keep the hybrid contained? Your efforts below were obviously inadequate."

Ross said, "We can handle that. We've got a supermax facility in place for exactly this kind of situation. It took some damage a few years back—" he shot Steve a quick glare "—but it's fully operational again."

"If you plan to move him, then Vision needs to stay to supervise the trip," Kel said. "He's the only one with the strength, who won't be damaged by a touch."

Natasha asked, "Do we have a plan for if and when Adé's nineteen colleagues try to stage a rescue?"

"My people will be happy to supply backup forces," Tor said. "As Kel demonstrated, the hybrids' empathic strength is no match for ours. For that matter, your teammate and your facility are unnecessary. We could just as easily hold the hybrid ourselves."

"No, let's keep this a joint operation," Steve said quickly. "Humans and j'Brenithi together. As a symbol of goodwill."

Tor inclined his head. "As you prefer."

"Besides," said Tony, "the other nineteen are going to be a little busy chasing us."

"Right," Ross said. "These leftover power cores. I take it you're going after them next?"

"Yeah. Once we've got what they want, we'll be the only target they care about."

Steve caught Tony's eye. He wasn't going to say this out loud — not in front of Ross and particularly not in front of Tor — but just one hybrid had all but beaten them. The team had a lot of work to do before they would be ready to meet them in force.

Tony gave a quick nod; he knew it, too.


	8. Chapter 8

The Berlin contingent, minus Vision, swung through Stuttgart to pick up the stragglers, then set course for the compound. It was time to regroup, rearm, and restrategize. En route, Tony checked in with Rhodey and confirmed that he had made contact with T'Challa and was on his way to Africa.

It was late morning in New York when they finally landed. Everyone knew what they were doing next, and various team members went their separate ways to prepare. Tony, Steve and Kel headed for Bruce's lab.

They found Bruce in the middle of a whole lot of fun with chemistry, displays flashing and beakers bubbling. He looked up as they entered and asked, "Did you see the news?"

Not the opening Tony'd been expecting. "Uh, we _are_ the news," he replied.

"No, I didn't mean Germany." Bruce rolled his stool across the aisle to the desk and angled one of the monitors in their direction. It was displaying a news article in Japanese. "The Kyoto team is reporting the recovery of a patient who was diagnosed with end-stage liver disease. Using a serum derived from Brenith tissues, they were able to trigger a complete organ regeneration. It's been seventy-two hours now, and all liver functions are normal, with no immunosuppressant drugs and no signs of rejection." He grinned. "It's revolutionary! This is the holy grail of regenerative medicine! And we've only just begun exploring the possibilities — there's every reason to believe that the treatment can be extended to other organs in the body. The implications are… well." He focused on Kel. "Thank you. This is going to save a lot of lives."

Kel ducked her head. "Your work, not ours," she said. "We just exist."

FRIDAY had already transferred an English summary of the announcement to Tony's glasses, and yeah — reading the paper and geeking out would definitely happen.

However, first things first. "Looking a little closer to home," he said, "have you made any headway on the hybrid problem? Curing them would be ideal, but I'll settle for slowing them down."

"Maybe a little," said Bruce. "I have to say, this would be a lot easier with more than a couple drops of blood."

"We have one of the hybrids in custody," Steve said, "but he's not exactly cooperative. I'm afraid you'll have to make do for now. What have you got?"

Bruce wheeled himself over to a different bench, where a row of test tubes stood in a rack. "I was able to identify a protein marker that's unique to the Brenith elements in the hybrid's blood. It'll take time, but I think there's a good chance that I'll be able to develop a treatment that will strip them out."

"That's good," said Tony, "since Steve promised our prisoner a cure in exchange for information. We'd hate for Captain America to go back on his word."

"Interestingly, that protein marker is nowhere to be found in Kel's blood and tissue samples," Bruce continued. "It must be an artifact of the hybridization process — the fact that they were converted as adult humans, rather than… uh."

"Rather than grown," Kel supplied.

"Are you anywhere on weapons?" Steve asked.

"Right. Okay." Bruce grabbed the closest tablet and pulled up a page of test results. "Kel's body chemistry is… _very_ alien. You said that neurotoxins don't work on you, right?"

"True," she said.

"Yeah, I'm not surprised. The Brenith nervous system is… well, you've got ion channels I still can't figure out, not to mention layer upon layer of redundancies. I'd call it ridiculous if I hadn't seen what your people can do with it.

"The hybrids, on the other hand, shouldn't be nearly so sophisticated. You can't reconstruct the entire human body from the molecular level up — you have to build on what's already there. Now, I'm extrapolating from very limited data here, but I _think_ that a paralytic in sufficiently high doses should be enough to neutralize their strength."

"I'm not an expert," Steve said, "but full-body paralysis generally leads to death by suffocation, doesn't it?"

Bruce winced. "Yeah. That's the catch. With no way to run tests, I can't tell the difference between a dose that would sap their strength and one that would kill them."

"I can work on this with you," said Kel. "I touched the hybrid in Germany. Learned a lot about how they're put together. Maybe not in your science terms, exactly, but…"

"No problem, we'll figure it out."

"Good," Steve said. "Keep me updated. Tony?"

"A delivery system, plus other arsenal upgrades," Tony said. "Don't worry about it. I have ideas. My ideas have ideas. The hybrids won't know what hit 'em."

* * *

Sightings of Nick Fury's sense of humor were rare. Natasha couldn't help but appreciate this one, in a perverse sort of way. He'd hidden the Tesseract power cores — the real ones — in the ruins of the Project Pegasus research facility where the Tesseract had first brought Loki to Earth.

In a few hours, the team would be heading there, with the expectation that a force of hybrids would follow. The anticipation was having a greater impact on some team members than others.

Natasha was leaning against the back wall of the hangar, waiting for her quarry, who was taking his sweet time. Finally, the crunch of boots across the grass told her that her patience was about to be rewarded.

Clint looked up sharply as he came around the corner. "What are you doing?"

"Waiting," Natasha said.

"You could be waiting a long time."

"That's all right. I'm not busy."

Clint gave a snort of derision and stepped past her. He crouched to set up Tony's drone launcher, then retrieved his bow and headed for open ground.

Natasha, of course, followed.

She only had to shadow him for a few paces before he stopped again.

"Are you going to tell me it wasn't me?" Clint asked. "Because I already know that. I've known it for six years."

Natasha didn't respond. She only waited and watched as the conflict played out in the minute inflections of his expression.

"It wasn't me," Clint said quietly. "But I remember it like it was. I remember being… _proud_ of my work."

"Well, you shouldn't be," Natasha said. "You were sloppy. Shooting Fury in the chest? When you knew perfectly well that he never goes anywhere without body armor? If I were Loki, I'd want my money back."

He glared. "This is your idea of a pep talk?"

"Oh, did you think this was going to be a pep talk?"

"You're a pain in the ass, you know that?"

"I know."

Clint gave a huff of annoyance and started walking again. Natasha continued to follow.

"So what do you make of our chances?" she asked.

"If Banner can level the playing field a bit as far as the super-strength is concerned? I think we've got the upper hand. If he can't…"

"Yeah."

Once they reached their position by the perimeter fence, Natasha and Clint both replaced their earpieces.

"You ready, Boss-Lady?" Clint asked.

"Yes," came Jean's response. She was set up with a rifle on the roof of the armory, across the field from them.

"The standard response is 'affirmative'," Natasha said. "It's one of the things they teach you in secret-agent school."

"How does 'Boss-Lady' figure into your communications protocol?" Jean asked.

"Perks of seniority," said Clint, and pulled the remote from his pocket. "Targets inbound."

The hybrids weren't going to have the luxury of seeding the battlefield with their traps this time. But they still needed a way to deal with Wanda and Tony. The prevailing theory ran that they were going to bring some more of their self-propelled handcuffs and other devices to deploy onsite. Hence the pair of snipers, primed to shoot down any and all enemy tech.

Tony's launcher, equidistant between Clint and Jean, began to fire.

Clint loosed his first arrow. From across the green, the first rifle shot rang out. Above their heads, electronics shattered.

Natasha sat back and watched the show. After a flurry of arrows and a barrage of bullets, the skies were clear.

Clint touched his earpiece. "That's a wrap, Boss-Lady. Stand down."

After a faint sigh, she responded, "Affirmative."

Natasha said, "The rookie's coming along pretty well, wouldn't you say?"

"Eh. Not bad."

* * *

Sam swung his arm in a slow circle, double-checking that all the components were working correctly. Kel had worked her magic on the wrenched ligaments on his shoulder — only fair, given that she'd wrenched them in the first place. The joint responded with just the faintest twinge, easily ignored.

His gear was also back in working order. Thanks to Tony, he had a brand new pair of wings, plus upgraded nanotech gauntlets and a helmet. The rest of the team was likewise outfitted. They had their weapons and they had their plan. They were as ready as they were going to get.

Steve gave a speech before they boarded the jet, because Steve was Steve.

"The place we're going has a lot of bad history," he said. "Let's not add to it. The hybrids are going to come for us in force, and that's exactly what we want — it's an isolated area where they can't endanger any civilians. Our mission is to contain them by any means necessary. We've got some tricks they haven't seen yet. Let's do this fast and clean, then get those power cores someplace safe." He took a look around the assembled group. "We're ready. Move out."

It was a couple hours to California, and the trip passed quietly. The team had already done all their planning and strategizing ahead of time. Some of them dozed, while others fine-tuned knives, guns and other weapons.

Tony gave them a heads-up, and a few minutes later there was a slight jolt as the Quinjet came in for a landing. The hatch opened, and the heat of the desert rushed in.

"We definitely got here first," Tony reported from the cockpit. "No life signs, no tech."

"Agree," said Kel. "We're alone."

"They won't be far behind us," Steve said. "Let's take our positions."

The Avengers filed down the ramp. Once the jet was empty, Tony had FRIDAY seal the hatch again, then activate the stealth panels and take off. Any one of the team could recall it, but they weren't leaving it sitting around as an obvious target.

It was midafternoon and the sun was high. Sam's goggles automatically tinted the view. Sweat was already gathering beneath the collar of his shirt. Hopefully the actual combat portion of this mission wouldn't drag on too long.

The team spread out across the sand. Even though the clock was running, they still took a moment.

They were looking at a lot of old scars.

Sam had never been to this place before. He'd been overseas during the New York incident. Even after he'd entered the Avenger phase of his life, he'd never heard any more than the general public did about how the whole thing had begun. Not until that day.

To his right were rows and rows of massive satellite dishes, all sand-encrusted and abandoned. The ones at the back of the formation were essentially intact. The front rows, however, had collapsed into a vast ravine. The same ravine, apparently, that held the remains of a secret SHIELD facility.

Back at the compound, the senior team members had filled in the new guys on some history. After the collapse, SHIELD had mounted an extensive salvage operation. They'd retrieved whatever equipment and data they'd been able to find, and the bodies. Then the place had been left to the desert.

At some point after that, Fury had dropped off a bit of dirty laundry.

In front of them was a cluster of buildings that had survived the collapse. One of them contained their target. The team started walking.

Sam stole a quick glance up ahead of him. Clint wasn't exactly an emotionally demonstrative guy under any circumstances, so to say that he was locked down wasn't actually saying much. Sam had only the basic outline of what had happened to him: somehow Loki had taken over his mind and compelled him to help further his invasion plans. Those sorts of memories would mess with anyone's head, and Sam could tell that Natasha was keeping a close eye on him.

Then there was Jean, who was also having old wounds reopened.

Sam slowed his pace slightly until he drew even with her. Then he asked quietly, "You holding up okay?"

She pressed her lips together for a moment. "I'm not enjoying myself. But I'm functional." She shot him a wry look. "Sharing sharpshooting duties with Hawkeye has a certain way of focusing the mind."

The rifle over Jean's shoulder was a Remington semi-automatic. It was a weapon that, while a little try-hard, wouldn't have looked entirely out of place on a civilian hunting trip, and that _would_ have looked out of place in the hands of, for example, the Winter Soldier. That didn't make it any less deadly, though, and Sam had heard that she was wicked with it.

"Yeah, I guess it would," Sam said. "I know you've got our backs. And we've got yours."

The compound must have been paved originally, but the sand had long since taken over. Every step took a bit of extra energy, and the drifts put ups and downs in their path where the ground should have been level. It was annoying to walk in, and was going to be even more annoying to fight in, at least for those of them who were earthbound. The sand was going to help them out in the long run, though. Sam and Tony set down the boxes they'd been carrying, and Tony's little surprises started spreading out.

The sand cover thinned as they approached the surviving buildings. Steve led them to one in particular, which certainly looked boring enough to be records storage.

The door had fallen off its hinges and lay at an angle across the threshold. Steve lifted it out of the way.

It did not take all eight of them to find a fake file box, but somehow all eight of them entered anyway. More sand had blown inside, of course, and it shifted beneath Sam's boots.

"Whoever masked these things knew their business," Tony said. He was fully suited up in the Iron Man armor, no doubt receiving reports on the suit's HUD. "I'm not reading any energy signatures."

They passed through another door, this one still attached to its hinges. On the other side was a large room full of metal shelves bearing file boxes. Most of them had their lids askew, and quite a few had fallen to the floor and dumped their contents. The entire room looked thoroughly rifled-through.

"Let me guess," Clint said. "We're looking for the one with a bunch of glowing blue things in it."

"We'll know in a minute," said Steve.

He picked his way through the debris to the fourth set of shelves from the door, and knelt by one file box in particular. It had _Receipts_ scrawled on the side in black marker.

Steve flipped open the lid.

Inside was a tipped-over stack of yellowing file folders, most with wrinkled papers protruding.

"Cute," Tony muttered.

Steve reached into the box. As his hand passed the rim, the view inside suddenly burst into static and vanished. In its place: a bunch of blue glowing things, packed into some kind of deeply black amorphous substance.

Jean asked, "Ten people dead for this?"

"Yes," said Kel.

"No," said Steve, and Kel looked over at him sharply. "Hundreds of people dead for this. Maybe thousands. Those soldiers were only the most recent in a very long list. And I wish I could believe they were the last."

"Perimeter alert," Tony said.

Sam's eyebrows went up. "That was quick."

"Not like we were trying to be subtle."

"How many?" Steve asked.

Kel closed her eyes and tilted her head back. Her fingers twitched for a moment, then she said, "Twelve."

"Yeah, that's what I'm getting, too," Tony said. "Chuting in, just like we figured. We've got about a minute."

"This is it," Steve said. "Positions, everyone."

Like Steve had said, the ruins were an ideal place for the Avengers to make their stand, since there were no civilians around for miles. It was surprising, actually, that the hybrids were hitting them there, when they could have easily taken hostages or otherwise forced a confrontation on their own terms. But this was still about proving who was stronger. The hybrids wanted the showdown.

Sam and Tony were already in their positions. Once the other six had gone, Sam shut the door, leaving the room in near-total darkness.

They had learned a few things from Kel and her training exercise, and not just that she and Natasha were shameless cheaters. The problem with the snare nets they'd planted at the compound was that everyone on the good guys' team had known where they were. When your enemy could all but live inside your body, that awareness gave the game away. So Tony'd made some upgrades. The new traps moved.

More precisely, a small army of drones had burrowed beneath the sand. The rest of the team had no idea where they were, so there would be no telltale empathic signals. Each drone carried a heavily fortified net and a dose of Bruce's paralytic, but the trap was inert until it was remotely activated.

And that was Sam and Tony's job. The HUD in Sam's goggles had received a serious Stark upgrade. He stood back to back with Tony, and a virtual representation of the grounds popped up in front of him, transmitted by sensors that Tony had planted outside. Six green insignias represented the rest of the team. Further off in the distance, small red dots on the perimeter were the hostiles. Faint grey lines sketched the ground and the buildings, and below ground level were the blue disks that represented the drones. The ones in front of him were brightly lit. In his peripherals, he could see a couple of duller ones that belonged to Tony.

In his earpiece, Steve asked, "Sam, Tony, are you online?"

"Yeah, Cap, we're good to go," Sam said.

"They're going to catch onto this fast. Take down as many as you can in the first sweep, then be ready to back us up out here."

"Relax, Steve, we know the plan," said Tony. "Just give the word."

The red dots on Sam's display were moving closer. A few crossed the perimeter silently maintained by their mobile traps — a promising sign. Others kept further back.

One dot in particular was walking right up to the cluster of Avengers on the ground. The Captain America shield shifted forward in response. Over comms, Sam could hear the conversation.

"It's not too late to be smart about this," came a female voice, mockingly.

"We can help you," said Steve. "We're working on a way to remove the Brenith genetic material. You can still walk away from all of this."

The response was a peal of laughter. "You don't understand what _all of this_ is!" the woman said. "Not even when the answer has been staring you in the face. Really, Captain, you're in no position to offer us anything."

"If that's the way you want it."

That was their cue. Sam reached out to the optical illusion that his goggles were presenting him. He had no idea how Tony had rigged it up, but somehow the blue disks pulsed when his fingertips reached them. He snagged two and swiped them toward the nearest hostile signatures. Behind him, Tony did the same.

Immediately from outside came explosions and cries of startlement. Two of the red dots dimmed and stopped moving.

"Get off the ground!" called the woman's voice.

Each attack was automated once the drone had been given its target. Sam had already activated another pair and sent them on their way. One of them snared its red dot, but the other — _damn_, those guys were fast. The hostile dodged the attack and—

Shrieking noise blasted his eardrums and the display shorted out.

"Well, that was fun while it lasted," said Tony, and popped open his helmet. "How many'd you get?"

"Looked like three," Sam said once he'd fished his earpiece out of his ear.

"Ah. Well, I got four, but good try."

Sam, as the bigger person, decided to ignore that. "Five to go, then."

An attacker leapt down from the roof as they burst out of the door, but ran straight into Tony's repulsors. Iron Man took off and so did Sam.

The nanotech helmet activated automatically as he climbed, dulling the whistle of the wind and the roar of his jetpack. Sam banked and circled the battlefield. Comms were down, but the tactical display on his goggles still worked. It highlighted the five remaining hybrids, spread out across the sand. Four of them were anonymous in their masks and black uniforms. The fifth had to have been the speaker from earlier — a tall white woman with blonde hair.

Wanda's energy blasts streaked red across Sam's peripheral vision. She and Kel, the powerhouses, had the file box between them. Clint and Jean had their perches on the perimeter, Clint on a roof and Jean on the lip of one of the surviving satellite dishes. Steve and Natasha were mobile.

None of them could match a hybrid for strength, but the two flyers had the advantage in mobility, and Wanda beat everyone in… Wanda-ness. Just like they'd predicted, the hybrids were trying to deploy some kind of high-tech restraints against her, but Jean and Clint were shooting them down. The ground was scattered with electronic debris sporting arrows or bullet holes.

After another one of their toys got shot down, one of the masked hybrids threw caution to the wind and rushed Wanda directly. She caught them in a red force field and tossed them into the air.

Superhuman reflexes were of no help when you were in the grip of gravity. Tony swooped by and fired off a containment net. It wrapped the hybrid securely, and they fell back to the ground, neutralized.

Sam also had a net gun tucked up against his side. He angled his wings and circled again, eyes sharp for teammates in trouble. Kel and Natasha were keeping another hybrid busy between them — as Sam swept by, the hybrid tried to leap clear of Natasha's pistols, but somehow Kel extended her energy shield to knock them back to the ground. Sam aimed and fired, and the net plus paralytic finished the job.

Three more. Sam couldn't spot the blonde at the moment. One black suit was fighting Steve. Tony was already angling to back him up. The other…

Made an easy jump from the battleground to land halfway up the side of the building where Clint was posted. Sam veered to cover him. The landscape wheeled beneath him and his Steyrs popped into his hands. He sighted on the hybrid and squeezed the triggers.

But those damned reflexes didn't miss a trick. The hybrid flung themselves from the corner of the wall to a nearby windowsill, and bullets rattled off the brick. With that vicious strength, the hybrid leapt for Sam.

And went abruptly off-course mid-flight with a bullet hole in their chest. On the other side of the complex, Jean ejected the clip from her rifle and loaded another.

It hadn't been a head shot. For a hybrid, it was probably survivable. Sam finished the job with a net.

His display showed no more hostiles on the move, just a bunch of black-suited figures on the ground who didn't seem to be getting up again. Sam came in for a landing next to Steve. His wings folded back up into his jetpack and his helmet retracted again. Tony touched down a few yards away.

Steve asked, "Everyone all right?"

"Yeah, we're good," said Sam. "Are the cores secure?"

"Right here," Wanda said, and stepped aside to show the file box sitting behind her. "None of them got close."

"I'm recalling the Quinjet," Tony said. "We should get that thing out of here before we start dealing with our little friends. How are they holding up?"

"Bruce found the dose very accurately," Kel said. "It continues to release slowly. They're alive, but they won't be able to move for a long time."

"Good," said Tony. "FRIDAY's almost got comms cleared. Steve, once the jet lands, you can call in some backup to pick up our guests."

Clint and Jean had finally made it down from their perches and joined the rest of them

Sam leaned toward Jean and said quietly, "Nice shot."

She nodded. "I've got your back." To the rest of the group, she said, "I lost sight of the spokeswoman. Did anyone see where she went?"

"Down," said Kel. "There's a space below. No way out. She waits."

A gust of sand picked up from behind them as the jet decloaked and landed. Wanda carried the file box up the ramp, and Steve followed her to make his call to the military escorts standing by. This place would be swarming with helicopters in a few minutes.

Then again, maybe not. "The radio is still down," Steve reported when he returned. "Our friend down below must have some kind of jamming device on her."

"All right, FRIDAY will take the jet out of range," Tony said. "In the meantime, are we ready to finish this off?"

"Yes," said Kel. "Time for it to be over."

* * *

Although it was going to make for a rather late night, T'Challa elected to wait up until Colonel Rhodes landed in Wakanda. His message had been urgent yet cryptic, and T'Challa didn't want to postpone hearing the full story.

He'd assumed that he was the only one still awake in the palace, but he was proved wrong when Shuri burst through his office door.

"Do you remember the upgraded Kimoyo beads I showed you a few months ago?" she asked.

"Good evening, Shuri," T'Challa said dryly. "This is a surprise."

She waved her hands impatiently. "Yes, yes, Your Majesty, I forgot to make a royal appointment. But do you remember the beads that I designed to take over enemy military aircraft?"

"You mean the ones you designed to override Stark's suits, that you made sure he knew about?"

"_Anyway_," she said with a roll of her eyes, "after I finished field tests, I put them into storage until you needed them for a mission. But then tonight I had an idea for how to improve the targeting system, so I went to bring them out again, and they were gone!"

"Could someone else on the design team have moved them?" T'Challa asked.

Shuri looked at him scornfully. "Really, brother, the first thing I did was check with my team. They haven't touched them. I also reviewed security records, and no one went anywhere near that section of the vault. They just _vanished_. I can't explain it!"

T'Challa gave a faint sigh. He had a sinking feeling that he could. "That's very interesting," he said, "given that just this morning, Thor informed me that he suspects that Loki has been entering the city surreptitiously."

She frowned. "How could Loki have broken into my lab?"

"Thor tells me that he can cast a variety of illusions, and he has the ability to conceal himself."

Her expression remained skeptical. "All right. Assuming it's possible… what would he want with Kimoyo beads?"

"That's a very good question," said T'Challa. "I think someone should ask him."

* * *

Thor seized his brother by the lapels and slammed him into the wall.

"Oh good," Loki groaned. "One of _these_ conversations."

"Why have you been stealing technology from Wakanda?" Thor demanded.

"What makes you think I've done any such thing?"

"Because King T'Challa has discovered missing items just as you've been sneaking out of the settlement in disguise! Now answer the question — what are you doing with their devices?"

"_Nothing_!" Loki retorted. "Search my chambers if you must — I have nothing of theirs in my possession! And out of curiosity, do you have a single shred of evidence to back up your accusation, or am I simply your favorite target to pummel?"

Thor scoffed in disgust and dropped Loki to the ground again. "Of course you left no evidence," he said. "I'm well aware that your illusions can hide you from view."

"So naturally, the fact that you can't tell who was responsible becomes proof in and of itself that _I_ was responsible. How wonderfully convenient."

"What I don't understand is _why_, when we are guests on this world, when our people only have a home because of King T'Challa's generosity—"

"_Generosity_?" Loki snapped. "They gave us cheap shacks, a few dozen goats, and some _dirt_! What is this great debt you think you owe them?"

"It was better than being turned away! Our people need a home, and if this is all they can spare, then—"

"Asgard doesn't _beg_!"

"_Asgard is gone_!"

The words rang out with terrible finality, and both of them were pulled up short.

Thor wondered if Loki felt the same way he did — like the weight of that one implacable truth could crush the life right out of him.

"Asgard is gone," he repeated once a few moments had passed, once he could breathe again. "We destroyed it, you and I. Because it had to be done."

Loki looked away, and made no reply.

"And because of that," Thor continued, "when every other government on this planet demanded that I hand you over to face justice for your attempted invasion, I refused. Even if it had meant that we wouldn't be welcome here. You ask me what debt I owe T'Challa? It's not for the land — it's for my brother."

Still not looking him in the eye, Loki muttered, "You always were too sentimental. One of your many flaws."

"Perhaps," said Thor. "And perhaps I'll surprise you with how quickly I get over it if you continue to harass the Wakandans. Really, Loki, I would have thought that petty thievery was beneath you."

"And we're back to this," Loki sighed. "I remind you, you still have no proof at all that I've stolen anything."

"Every thief covers their tracks. That doesn't…"

But then…

But then he trailed off, because an odd idea occurred. An incongruity suddenly arose that he'd never considered before.

What he'd just said wasn't entirely true.

Loki arched his eyebrows. "Don't stop on my account, brother."

Thor paced away and tried to draw this new idea into focus. "You stole from a more powerful force—"

"These mortals are _not_—"

"—and you concealed your actions. Naturally. What thief would willingly leave evidence behind?"

"Even if I had done what you claim," Loki said, "what's your point?"

"The Brenith hybrids are built from flesh stolen from j'Brenn," Thor said, "and the thieves didn't conceal themselves at all. They flaunted their actions. Why?" It was precisely the question that Loki had asked the night before, and Thor quickly turned back to him. "What _did_ they hope to gain?"

Loki's eyes narrowed as he studied Thor's expression. "Ask yourself what happened next," he said.

Thor considered the various news broadcasts he'd seen, and the reports he'd received from T'Challa. "The _hirethe_ were incensed," he said. "They demanded that the perpetrators be brought to justice. They summoned the Avengers to combat the threat."

"And?"

_And?_

The Avengers were pursuing the problem. That was the last he'd heard.

But they weren't doing so alone. There was a new human woman with them whom Thor hadn't met yet, as well as…

His eyes widened as understanding dawned.

Loki smirked. "Now you're getting it. Why attack head-on when you can infiltrate? No one ever sees it coming."

Thor set off at a dead run. Surely T'Challa would know how to contact the Avengers. They were in terrible danger.

* * *

The ravine cutting through the complex turned out to have a metal staircase riveted to the side of it. It must have been installed during the salvage operation. Sam cautiously set a foot on the first platform. It seemed sturdy enough, but he was still damned glad to have his wings for backup. Tony went down first in the suit, scanning for structural weaknesses. Sam came next, and the rest of the team slowly followed.

The eight of them reached the ground without incident. At the base of the ravine, they found a tunnel that led into the rock. It must have collapsed during Loki's attack, then been excavated later. The passageway was narrow, and braced by a sequence of thick metal struts.

As soon as they reached ground level, it was Kel who took the lead. She headed down the tunnel at a run, and the team followed.

The end of the tunnel opened up into a massive concrete chamber. The concrete was obviously new, as were the lights strung along the ceiling.

In the center of the floor was a raised platform, and in the middle of the platform was what Sam could only describe as an oversized throne. It faced away from the entrance. The occupant, if there was one, couldn't be seen.

The blonde woman was standing next to the throne with her hands folded in front of her. She watched expressionlessly as the Avengers approached, and made no move to engage.

Kel didn't attack, either. She slowed as she reached the platform, stepped up on the other side of the throne, and turned to face the team.

_What the hell?_

"What's going on here?" Steve demanded. "Kel?"

Between the two women, the throne slowly turned.

It was Kith.

And just like that, the whole thing — every single event, right from the beginning of the crisis — got turned on its head.

Sam just barely heard Natasha whisper, "Steve, we need to run _right now_."

"Were they everything I said?" Kel asked.

Kith inclined his head. "It was an informative demonstration."

"No," Tony said. His hands came up, repulsors targeting Kith, and everyone else followed. Sam pulled his Steyrs. From everywhere around him, guns cocked and magic blazed.

"Kel," Kith said.

Kel raised her hand and squeezed her fist closed. It lit up from beneath her skin with glowing gold energy.

A split-second later, Sam's own hand began doing the exact same thing.

At the same time, a terrible pressure began to build, like the blood in his veins was turning to lead. It started in his arm but spread out fast. His body grew impossibly heavy, dragging him down.

Sam dropped to his knees. All around him, the rest of the team was doing the same.

His vision began to cloud over. The last thing he saw before the darkness closed in was Kith, smirking openly from his throne, and Kel at his right hand.

* * *

Thaddeus Ross straightened his tie and attempted to restrain his irritation. The _ti-hireth_ had peremptorily summoned him to the Brenith consulate in New York, apparently to discuss "news of a mutually beneficial nature". Privately, Ross had his doubts. The _mutually beneficial_ aspect of their relationship had been derailed by those damned hybrids, and showed no signs of recovery yet.

Nevertheless, he showed up at 8pm as requested. An aide — who was tall but not absurdly so, the way the _hirethe_ were — led him to the audience chamber, where Kith was waiting.

Brenith interior design tended to be chilly. The walls were light grey with faint gold threading, and the floor was grey marble. The consul's desk, which was of course oversized by human standards, was a deep mahogany with gold trimming.

Kith was behind the desk, and he wasn't alone. Kel stood against the wall behind his right shoulder. To Kith's left, mirroring Kel's position, was a human woman whom Ross didn't recognize. She was statuesque, blonde-haired and blue-eyed.

Well. Presumably there was a good reason for all of this.

"Good evening, Kith," Ross said. "You wanted to speak with me?"

Kith leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. "When I first heard that Tor had created a child with human blood," he said, "I confess, I was appalled. It was beyond my comprehension why any Brenith would create such a monstrosity. More than once, I thought to order the child's destruction. However, I ultimately decided that the nature of our childhood training would accomplish this without my interference.

"But the child became _eneth_, and the _eneth_ became _shorath_. Then the _shorath_ played a key role in a major military victory, and the name of the _shorath_ was spoken even to me. For all of her frailties, Kel is a Brenith. I'm pleased that I forbore.

"And yet it wasn't until much more recently that I truly began to appreciate your species." Kith's gesture indicated the woman to his left. "You humans are so wonderfully adaptable. _Pliant_. You mold yourselves to fit every circumstance, no matter how foreign. Right down to the DNA. No, I must say that this experiment has been a rousing success."

Ross looked from Kith to the woman. She was staring at him with her ice-blue eyes like she saw right through him.

And suddenly it all clicked into place.

"My God," he breathed. "The hybrids. That was _you_?"

"Of course it was," said Kith. "Who else would dare?"

"_Why_?"

Kith smiled. "As a favor," he said. "For a friend."

Ross shook his head in noncomprehension. "What?"

"For _you_, Mister Secretary. And the furtherance of our mutual aims."

"Ten American servicemen were killed in Stuttgart!" Ross snapped. "And you're telling me that _you're_ responsible?"

"Yes, I am," Kith replied. "But for your purposes, the far more relevant piece of information is that evidence will very soon come to light that implicates Wakanda."

"Wakanda?" Ross repeated stupidly. "What… _purpose_ of mine could you possibly—"

"Come now, Mister Secretary, let us not be coy." Kith planted his hands on the desk and stood up from the chair. "You want Wakanda's vibranium, and so do I. A direct confrontation would cost you _far_ more than ten soldiers' lives. But with this incident, and the outrage behind it, you will have the political leverage to demand inspections. Disclosures of resources and technology. An end to their centuries of secrecy. It gives you a _foothold_. Every great victory begins with the correct foothold.

"Imagine it," he continued, and walked out from behind the desk. "Imagine all the wealth and power that Wakanda has hoarded being placed in your hands — the _correct_ hands. Imagine no longer being at the mercy of the next member of the royal family who decides to wage war on the rest of the world. You _know_ that they have held too much power for too long. They are a _threat_, and they must be controlled." Kith's path ended with him directly in front of Ross. "I don't spend soldiers' lives lightly," he said. "But I do spend them, when the prize is worthy."

This was…

This…

Wakanda was a threat. _Of course_ it was. For all that T'Challa had tried to play down the incident from two years ago, the fact remained that Wakanda had infiltrated every country in the world and was fully capable of deploying weapons of mass destruction wherever and whenever they pleased. It was… it was _obscene_, knowing that the US was as good as defenseless.

If Kith was genuinely offering him a way to regain the upper hand…

Kith continued past Ross to the other side of the room. "Naturally," he said, "in return for your cooperation and understanding, we would offer your country the exclusive rights to the hybridization formula. After a suitable length of time has passed, of course, and the new world order is no longer in dispute."

The evening had taken on a surreal cast. Ross kept waiting for the illusion to shatter. He looked over at Kel and the hybrid. Both were standing still as statues, observing without expression.

(_Just one hybrid all but neutralized the Avengers. With soldiers like that_—)

"What about the Avengers?" Ross asked. "They'll put this together, if they haven't already."

"The Avengers are no longer an issue," said Kith. "They have been contained. You attempted this once, I believe, beneath one of your oceans. We took a similar approach, though we've chosen a different venue."

Ross's eyes widened. "You _contained_ the Avengers?"

Kith shrugged. "You've said yourself on more than one occasion that they obey no chain of command except their own. To have such a chaotic, destabilizing force within your territory — knowing that at any moment, any one of your plans for the defense and advancement of your country might be derailed at the whim of Captain Steve Rogers? It cannot be borne."

"Are they alive?"

"Of course. Certain of them might yet be useful one day, and in the meantime, by keeping them alive and under surveillance, we can generate voice and video simulations as needed."

The Avengers neutralized. It was…

It was what he'd wanted for years. It was everything he'd dared to hope for from this alliance. The United States and j'Brenn — unified by a common purpose.

"If you're containing subversive forces," Ross said slowly, "there are a few more names I would add to the list."

**End of Part 1**   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be a six-week hiatus. Part 2 begins on Thursday December 19.


	9. Chapter 9

A pacing God of Thunder tended to fill the available space. Thor's cape swirled at his heels as he reversed course and strode back across T'Challa's office.

"Are you certain?" he asked Rhodes. "Try again."

Rhodes gestured impatiently with his phone. "Look, I've texted Tony, I've texted Steve," he said. "They both say everything is fine. The operation in the Mojave desert went off without a hitch, and now they've got twelve new prisoners to babysit. The hybrids are being transferred to military custody, and I'm guessing Steve will be doing paperwork until the sun rises. I gave them your warning, and they said they'll keep an eye out." He paused for a moment, and his lips thinned in irritation. "As far as Kel is concerned… I'm not a member of her fan club. Not by a long shot. You tell me she's got a hidden agenda? I have no trouble believing that. But I also can't help but notice the source. It's a bit convenient, isn't it, that Loki put this idea in your head right when you were accusing him of being a thief?"

Thor sighed and reversed course yet again. "You think this is a lie to divert us."

"You're the one who knows him. What do you think?"

T'Challa leaned forward and folded his hands on his desk. "I think," he said, just a touch pointedly, "that Loki and the Brenithi are each involved in recent events, even if their respective agendas are yet to be determined. Colonel, perhaps you would show King Thor what you were just showing me."

The flattened disks that Rhodes produced from his pocket were undeniably Shuri's upgraded Kimoyo beads. The internal circuitry was designed to self-destruct in the event that the bead was forcibly removed from its target. The devices were now inert.

"The hybrid in Stuttgart used these to shut down the Iron Man and War Machine armor," Rhodes said to Thor. "King T'Challa has confirmed what Tony and I suspected: it's Wakandan tech."

"Specifically, these are two of the devices that were stolen from Shuri's lab," T'Challa said. "If both of our hypotheses are correct — that Loki was the thief, and that the Brenithi engineered this crisis for their own purposes…"

"Then Loki was working with the Brenithi," Thor concluded, "and is betraying them now to throw suspicion off himself. That is… absolutely something Loki would do."

"However," T'Challa added, "we have no evidence, only suspicions."

"Unfortunately, there's another theory making the rounds," Rhodes said. "Nick Fury thinks that the hybrids could have been created here in Wakanda. Maybe someone else a little closer to home stole the tech, with or without Loki's help, and now he's just blowing smoke to keep us off his back."

"Which is also absolutely something Loki would do," said Thor.

Rhodes had already discussed Fury's theory with T'Challa prior to Thor's arrival. The rush of anger at the accusation was more muted this time, and was beginning to be supplanted by concern. T'Challa knew that if he ever found himself in a position of denying responsibility for this event on the world stage, it would already be too late — those who wanted to believe the worst of Wakanda would view denials as evasions and lack of evidence as a sign of a cover-up. The first theory to go public _had_ to be the correct one, and it had to be irrefutable.

So what _was_ the truth? Thor had pointed out the same incongruity that Nakia had mentioned a week prior: the thieves had gone out of their way to advertise the source of their powers, a move that had been guaranteed to anger the Brenithi. The next step in the argument — that the Brenithi had fomented that outrage themselves for the purpose of planting an operative among the Avengers — did go a long way toward explaining matters. However, they had no evidence, particularly given that Kel seemed not to have taken any hostile actions as yet.

(T'Challa had met Kel briefly when the Brenithi had visited Wakanda. At the reception, she'd offered the same anodyne pleasantries as the other Brenith aides. He'd had no further interaction with her: the three _hirethe_ had handled all of the higher-level meetings on their own. He'd read all of the reports from Venen-ka, where she had fought alongside the Avengers in a months-long campaign. Whether she was capable of betraying them, he couldn't begin to guess.)

Each party's next move would be critical. In the morning — which was only a few hours away — T'Challa would let his scientific and security advisors know of the developing situation. Thor, no doubt, would continue to press Loki on his story. That left only Rhodes with a decision to make.

"You've made a long journey, Colonel," he said, "and I'm grateful to you for bringing me this warning. You're welcome to a suite in the residence for as long as you need it. But if you wish to rejoin the Avengers, I can also have my jet convey you back to them."

Rhodes glanced at his phone, now lying on T'Challa's desk. The internal debate played out in his expression.

"The one hard piece of evidence we do have came from here," he said at last. "My gut is telling me that the next piece of action is going to happen here. The rest of the team can take care of themselves. If you don't mind, I'd like to stick around for a few days and see what turns up."

* * *

Ross followed Kith, Kel and the unnamed hybrid out to the courtyard of the consulate, and was more than a little taken aback to find the Avengers' Quinjet.

Kel ran her fingers along the gold patterning on her right sleeve, and somehow it transformed into a small control panel. She tapped it, and the rear hatch of the jet opened.

Ross joined the procession up the ramp. Kel and Kith took the two front seats, leaving Ross and the hybrid woman — whose silent stare was quite unnerving — in the back.

Somewhat alarmingly, Kel seemed to be the pilot. She detached the panel from her sleeve and set it on the front console. In response to her gestures, the panel grew in size and sprouted wires that crept beneath the controls. As Kel continued to tap out commands, the hatch closed and the engines powered up.

"You're a pilot?" Ross asked her.

"I don't have to be," Kel replied. "The machine knows how to fly itself, and with this—" she reached below the console to tap something outside of Ross's view "—I control the machine."

"A very convenient piece of technology taken from Wakanda," Kith added. "We'll be happy to share them with your military, of course."

The jet lifted off and picked up speed. Ross assumed that they were in stealth mode, given that the appearance of an unauthorized aircraft in the middle of Manhattan would have merited an immediate military response. It was a shocking experience, actually — flying invisibly through a major metropolitan center — and drove home yet another way that the Avengers posed a threat to good order and discipline. Based on nothing but Rogers' word, they could violate the airspace of any country they chose, interfering with American operations or undermining their interests with impunity.

No more. It was finally coming to an end.

It only took the jet a few minutes to reach cruising altitude. As the pitch of the engine leveled off, Ross heard Kel give a snort of amusement.

"The second armor suit one continues to warn Tony and Steve about me," she said to Kith, and swiped her finger across the control panel. "From Wakanda. It seems like the Asgardian king guessed what we do. The human isn't sure."

"We shall have to give the Asgardians a more pressing concern," said Kith. "I'll pass the word. Are you responding?"

"Yes. Steve speaks of how helpful I was in the mission in the desert."

Ross asked, "You hijacked their communications, too?"

"We stole many things," Kel replied.

"It's interesting to me that you're comfortable with all of this, given how closely you worked with the team before."

She looked back at him with contempt that she made no effort to conceal. "I look like you," she said. "It doesn't mean I like you that much."

"Kel is a loyal Brenith," Kith added. "The Avengers overlooked that fact, to their detriment. It would be wise not to duplicate their error."

It was a very short flight from the city to Avengers Compound. The jet's programming brought them in for a smooth landing. Kel opened the hatch, and the four of them descended.

At that hour, it was fully dark. Motion-activated exterior lights flicked on as the group walked across the pavement. Kel led them unhesitatingly to a large building that Ross had never visited before, which turned out to be the location of the compound's laboratory facilities.

The only lab with the lights still on held Bruce Banner, hard at work.

Ross couldn't deny that he was going to enjoy this immensely.

"Kel?" Banner said as she came in. "I didn't realize the team was back. I must have lost track of the time. Is everything…"

But he trailed off when he saw who was with her.

Kith smiled urbanely. "Good evening, Dr. Banner. How nice to see you in human form."

"Kel?" Banner said again, this time a lot more warily. "What's going on here?"

"All the research is here," Kel said to Kith. "Tissue samples from me and blood from a hybrid, plus information on the computers. Almost able to reverse the hybrid process, I'm told."

Kith gave an unimpressed sniff. "Hardly surprising. We did design them that way."

Banner's jaw dropped. "_You_—"

"Still," Kith continued, "we wouldn't want that information escaping our control."

He gestured in the hybrid woman's direction. She pulled some kind of USB drive out of her pocket and plugged it into the nearest computer. The display immediately went haywire.

"Hey!" Bruce exclaimed. He started toward her, but Kith stepped smoothly into his path.

"As you may have gathered," Kith said, "your services are no longer required. We're going to relocate you someplace a bit more secure."

"No, I don't think so," Banner retorted. "Where's Tony? Where's the rest of the team?"

"They have been similarly secured," Kith replied. "Now, you and I already know which of us is the stronger. You _will_ be coming with us. You may do so as a human, or as a caged and sedated beast. Which do you prefer?"

All around the room, monitors were switching off one by one. Banner looked wildly from side to side, seeking an escape route that wasn't there.

His gaze landed on Kel again, and he snapped, "We _trusted_ you! What did you do?"

Kel met his eyes coldly. "I won," she said.

Banner eventually chose to walk out under his own power. Kith escorted him. Then the hybrid dropped grenades and blew the lab to kingdom come.

* * *

Sam made the slow climb back to consciousness. He was more than a little surprised to find anything to climb back to.

Before opening his eyes, he took a moment to assess his status. He was lying on a cushioned surface. As far as he could tell, all of the parts he was expecting to have were still attached. His head was swimming and his stomach churned — probably a souvenir of whatever the hell had knocked him out.

He took an experimental breath. Lungs and related components all seemed to be working okay. But the more he woke up, the more it seemed like there was something wrong with his equilibrium. He couldn't tell if he was lying flat or inclined. The surface beneath him seemed sturdy enough, and yet he felt like he was about to fall. Or maybe he already _was_ falling. It was the damnedest sensation and he couldn't explain it.

"Hey, Sam," came a voice. Natasha's voice. "Take it slow, okay? The gravity takes some getting used to. To say nothing of the view."

Her voice was reassuring. Her words weren't.

Sam managed to crack his eyelids open. He was in a small, bare room with no windows. Yellow light emerged from recessed alcoves near the ceiling, which was at least three feet higher than he would have expected. The cot he was lying on was the only piece of furniture. Through the doorway, which had no door on it, he could see a piece of hallway, just as plain.

Natasha was leaning against the wall next to Sam, watching him with her arms crossed. "Seriously, move slowly," she said, almost before he'd decided to move at all. "Pretend you're underwater."

Sam tried to sit up and swing his legs over the side of the bed. Simple, familiar motions, right? Except it somehow went wrong. The sick, sinking feeling in his guts intensified, like he was stuck in an elevator dropping way too fast, and his every move got weirdly magnified to the point where he nearly tossed himself onto the ground.

"What the hell…"

He managed to get himself back under control by clutching the edge of the bed, and Natasha gave him a sympathetic wince.

Okay, so that was messed up.

Sam went back to observation for a minute. He was dressed in sweatpants and a T-shirt that were pretty emphatically _not_ his, and Natasha was wearing exactly the same thing. He recognized a prison uniform when he was looking at one. The cot — which was level, regardless of what his inner ear was telling him — was equally utilitarian: it was just a metal frame bolted to the ground, with a mattress and a single sheet.

So this was a holding facility of some kind. Great. But none of that explained why he couldn't find his balance.

Whatever the explanation was, he was pretty sure he wasn't going to like it.

"Hey, Nat," he said slowly, "exactly where the hell are we?"

"I'm sorry," she said, "but you'll have to see it to believe it. Follow me — I'll show you the window."

Natasha made a bizarre, almost cartoonish two-footed hop that carried her from the far wall all the way out the door. Any decent track-and-fielder could have easily managed the distance… but there was no way they could have arranged to drift back to the ground so slowly.

Not on Earth, anyway.

Sam stood up very, very slowly, and soon figured out what Natasha must have already known: walking didn't work here. A step threatened to send him spinning right off his feet. He tried to copy her hop, grabbing the doorjamb to help navigate around the corner.

Down the hall from the tiny bedroom was a larger open space with a collection of chairs and couches around the perimeter. The rest of the team was there — Tony, Steve, Clint, Wanda, and Jean.

The wall straight ahead had a window that spanned almost its entire length. Sam hoped to _hell_ that the glass was stronger than it looked, because on the other side was…

The Earth. The whole damned thing, or pretty close. It was a bright blue disk, instantly recognizable even at this distance, hanging up there in a clear starry sky where it had absolutely no business being.

Beneath it was a craggy landscape of dull grey rock, stretching out in all directions. It was devoid of structures or signs of life, or anything at all, as far as the eye could see.

"Yeah," said Clint. "We're on the Moon."

The window was… Sam had to turn away. Except he did it too fast and threw himself off balance, and wound up bouncing in that bizarre slow motion past one of the couches. Nat snagged him as he passed and helped him steady himself again.

Sam cleared his throat and tried to regain some dignity. The Moon was… okay, the Moon was not an issue he was equipped to deal with right then. He needed to take this thing in more manageable pieces.

"Is anyone else here?" he asked. "Guards, other prisoners?"

"Nope," said Clint. "Nobody here but us suckers."

"Speaking of suckers," Tony said, "now that we're all awake — Jean? If this is some secret scheme that the two of you cooked up together and you're just waiting for the most dramatic moment to break the news… that'd be now."

Jean and Tony were sitting on opposite ends of the couch to Sam's right. Jean had her arms wrapped around herself and her knees tucked up. It was pretty much the polar opposite of her usual Boss-Lady demeanor.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly, without lifting her eyes from the floor. "I'm as much in the dark as the rest of you."

The Kel issue was also something Sam wasn't prepared to address yet. "We've obviously got heat and air," he said. "How about food and water?"

"It's like the hotels back on j'Brenn," said Nat. "There are food and water dispensers that you can summon from the walls once you find the right trigger point. And there's a cubicle in the back with soap and a toilet. It's a bit of an adventure with the gravity this low, but we've all seen worse."

"Skipping a few steps, aren't you?" Clint said. "I'm still stuck on: how the _fuck_ did the Brenithi build a prison on the goddamned _Moon_? And how did they get us here?"

"We know they're spacefaring," Steve said. "They could have a ship hidden somewhere in the vicinity, and… I don't know, maybe some kind of transportation technology."

Clint frowned skeptically. "That's a bit _Star Trek_, isn't it?"

"After everything we've seen, is any idea too far-fetched to be possible?"

"Tony?" Natasha said. "This is usually the point where you have opinions about alien tech."

But Tony's focus had drifted. He was slowly ticking something off on his fingers, and the calculation seemed to be occupying the entirety of his attention.

"What are you doing?" Clint asked.

"Counting hands."

"Why, are you missing one?"

"Two, actually, but I can take a good guess at both of them."

Steve asked, "Tony, what are you talking about?"

"We've been _tagged_," Tony snapped, and turned his palm to face the room. "Remember what took us all down? We've got nanites in us. And I know how they got there. Transcutaneous implantation."

Sam looked down at his own hand — the one that had lit up with glowing gold — and rubbed the palm with his thumb while trying to convince himself that he didn't actually feel like bugs were crawling beneath his skin.

"She almost never touches palm to palm," Tony continued, more quietly. "I can think of one time with the kid, and maybe once more in private. For her race, it's too personal a gesture. But over the last couple of days, she clasped hands with every single one of us. Count 'em back. Sam — the fight in Stuttgart. The hybrid was going for your hand, but she got there first."

He nodded. Tony was right — it was the same hand.

"Jean, you're one of the ones I didn't see," Tony continued, "but I'm guessing it was after your tête-à-tête with Fury?"

"Yes. I disarranged my knuckles somewhat. She…" Jean looked down at her palm, just like Sam was doing. "I should have realized it at the time, but I was… distracted."

"Wanda? She got you in front of all of us, back at the compound after the training exercise. Clint — right before that, the broken finger. Did she touch your palm?"

"Yeah."

"Natasha, I'm guessing she found some kind of excuse while the two of you were hatching your plan."

Natasha nodded. "I wanted to know more about her sensory capabilities. She offered to transmit her perceptions to me. She took my hand."

"Yeah," said Tony, and turned to Steve. "That leaves you and me. And you know when she got us, right?"

"At the party," Steve said. "I danced with her, and so did you."

"That's right. And I can also explain our two no-shows. Rhodey didn't trust her. He would never have let her touch him. And whatever those nanites did to us, there's no chance it would have worked on Vision. _Amazing_, isn't it, how those are exactly the two of us who wound up with jobs to do elsewhere?"

Sam's head was still swimming, from both the low gravity and the revelations. "The Brenithi set this whole thing up," he said, feeling his way through the logic. "The hybrids, the attacks, all of it, so they could plant her on the team, because she was the only one who could get close enough to take us out. And—" he flexed his hand "—she did it. We're down for the count. So what happens now? What do they want?"

"Oh, I'm sure it's nothing much," Tony replied. "Just the planet."

* * *

After Banner's relocation, Ross and his allies returned to the Brenith consulate in New York.

"The Potts situation requires more delicate handling," Kith said once they were back in the consul's office. "It would hardly do for us to be seen snatching a human citizen off the street."

Ross had been waiting for this moment ever since that woman had humiliated him two years ago. He'd had no shortage of time to compile her offenses. "Your people don't need to be involved," he said. "I can easily find a reason to have her arrested."

"That would still result in a public spectacle," said Kith, "which I would prefer to avoid."

"Let me go after her," said the hybrid, whose name, Ross had learned, was Anna. "Infiltration is my specialty, after all."

Kel asked, "Is it a good idea to take her at all? She runs a large business, probably would be missed right away."

"Which also makes her uniquely positioned to raise a public fuss over the disappearance of the Avengers," Anna said. "How long do you think you can play Tony Stark via text message to the person who knows him best? This is an operation that calls for finesse." She turned back to Kith. "It isn't enough to silence Potts. The Avengers aren't the only enhanced in the world — she might have contacts that we don't know about. When I'm through with her, I'll have all her secrets, and she'll be helping _me_ to concoct a story to cover her disappearance."

"Very well," Kith said after a moment's consideration. "Take the jet, and arrange the details as you see fit. Kel, you will transfer your flight controls, and take over training the Generation Fives in Anna's absence."

Kel raised her hand in front of her face and bowed her head.

Anna asked, "Who else could pose a threat to us?"

"There's one more known associate of Iron Man still at large," Ross said. "Spider-Man."

"Kel," Kith said. "Your assessment?"

"Very strong, very fast," she replied. "Also very young. Still in school. The last one, the…" She gestured vaguely with her right arm. "Up school. No. _High_ school."

Ross stared. "Spider-Man is a _high school student_? Unbelievable." It was common knowledge that Iron Man supplied most of Spider-Man's tech, which meant that Stark was regularly putting multi-million dollar suit technology in the hands of a minor. How that man was allowed to roam the streets unsupervised… "Did Stark ever tell you this boy's name, or where he lives?"

"The first name is Peter," Kel said. "This is all I know. I don't have an address. Would have to search the city. But this wouldn't be difficult. The sense is very distinctive."

Anna said sharply, "We hunt children now?"

"Children can be dangerous," Kel retorted. "I think you would know this."

Kith asked, "What do you think the child would do upon discovering that the Avengers have vanished?"

"On his own?" Kel gave a contemptuous snort. "Panic. The child played a minor role in the Venen-ka war. Ran errands, carried messages. As a member of the team, he was useful. Alone, he doesn't have the experience or resources to cause a problem." She pursed her lips pensively. "Still. The enhancements are interesting. We might want him just for this."

"Perhaps," Kith said, "but it's a low priority. Very well — we will keep an eye on the child, but take no further action at this time."

"Is there anything else you need from me?" Ross asked.

"Not at all, Mister Secretary," Kith replied. "All you need do now is react to events as you naturally would. Wakanda will open their borders, or face the wrath of our worlds united."

* * *

Their lunar habitat had no clocks. Sam guessed that he'd been awake for about an hour, but honestly, the environment was so surreal, he had no way to know for sure.

He'd done a walkthrough (…_bounce_-through) of the facility, such as it was. The sitting room was at what Sam decided to call the front of the building. The hallway ran down the midline, and the tiny bedrooms branched off of it on both sides. (Seven prisoners, seven beds. The place had been built to order.) On the right side of the hall where the eighth bedroom should have gone was just a blank wall.

At the far end of the hall was another open space, smaller than the sitting room, that served as the kitchen. It operated on the same principles as the j'Brenn hostels that the team had stayed in two years back. Once Sam found the correct indentation in the wall, a grasping gesture summoned a glass of water out of what looked like thin air. On their trip, Kel had told them that the water ran down small tubes just behind the surface of the wall, and the nearby nanites formed the glass around the water and pushed it out into the user's hand. If Sam left the glass on the countertop, it would be absorbed again, and the water recycled.

The kitchen had three water dispensers, and three food slots to go along with them. The food they had available was the height of Brenith cuisine: dry little disks that looked like rice cakes and tasted like cardboard. Foodstuffs, too, ran through narrow channels behind the wall, and were processed into disk form on command. Back on j'Brenn, Kel had assured them that the food contained all the nutrients a human would need, and the team had in fact managed to live on the things for a month without developing signs of malnutrition.

Still. They _really_ needed to meet an alien race that could cook.

On the right-hand wall of the kitchen was the only door in the place, and behind it was the washroom. Again, Sam was familiar with the design from his time on j'Brenn. There wasn't a shower — he wasn't sure how that would have even worked in the low gravity — but a particular nanite trigger point produced body wash, and another one yielded washcloths. A toilet and all the basic hygiene supplies were also available.

The place was, on the most basic level, livable. Boring as hell and soon to get cramped, but livable.

Sam, as the last one to wake up, was apparently the last one who needed to explore. The rest of the group didn't seem too interested in moving around at all, which Sam diagnosed as a combination of not wanting to deal with the ridiculous low-gravity locomotion and depression at having been played for fools.

In his professional opinion, it was a dangerous combination.

Eventually, for lack of anything else to do, Sam returned to the sitting room, where it seemed like the rest of the team was exactly where he'd left them. He sat down on the couch again next to Natasha, and joined the morose silence.

"She did us one favor, at least," Clint said abruptly.

Sam looked up. "Yeah? What's that?"

"She let me keep my deck of cards." He reached into the pocket of his sweatpants and pulled out a well-worn box. A neat flick of his wrist — God, it _really_ looked like a cartoon, the way everything fell way too slowly — sent it winging across the room Natasha's way. She snatched it out of the air as it passed — or tried to. Her left hand fumbled the catch and she had to grab the box with her right.

Sam heard her faint sigh of annoyance. The rest of the team pretended not to notice.

The next one to break the silence was Tony.

"Rhodey is going to be insufferable when he finds out about this," he said. "Seriously, I can hear him already — 'I told you so' will be just the opening salvo. Right from the beginning, he warned me not to take the Brenith story at face value, but— and by the way, how did no one see this coming? I mean, not to point fingers, but _one_ of us is supposed to be an infiltration expert." He might not have been pointing fingers, but his gaze fell on Natasha with pinpoint accuracy. "Seriously? No red flags? Not even a hint?"

"Tony, this isn't helping," Steve said sharply.

If Natasha was ruffled by his accusations, she didn't let it show. "We're all angry," she said. "But Kel didn't just wake up one morning and decide to betray us. She's obviously operating under orders."

"Oh, you're sure of that, are you?"

That time she did openly glare. "Come on, Tony. She didn't need the elaborate games. That woman could take you apart with a few well-placed sentences."

Tony's mouth opened and closed a couple times. Finally he jabbed a finger in her direction and snapped, "Impolite!"

Clint said, "We all remember who we picked up that particular verbal quirk from, right?"

"It doesn't matter," Jean said, mostly to the floor. "Whether this was her idea or not. It makes no difference. She probably is working under orders. Fine. But Kith has the right to execute her on a whim, and he absolutely will if he has any reason to suspect disloyalty. Whatever her orders are, we need to assume that she'll carry them out to the best of her ability."

The mood, if possible, dropped even further.

"I did notice," Natasha said after a moment. "I knew something was bothering her. I talked to her about it before the fight with Adé." She gave a quiet chuckle. "It was expertly done. She didn't even have to lie. She said that she was upset that the hybrids had been created in her image, and she felt responsible for their actions."

Clint scoffed. "No shit."

Eventually, Tony said, "I tried, too. In Berlin. She said… _God_. She said she was stressed about how first contact between our races wasn't going the way she'd hoped. And I _knew_ that wasn't the whole story, I knew there was something else going on, but I didn't… _dammit_!"

But his attempted slap to the arm of the couch put him on the bad side of the low gravity, and he wound up bouncing himself right onto the floor.

"And this is an _asinine_ place to put a prison!"

Jean braced her heel beneath the couch for leverage, and offered Tony a hand back up.

"We all missed the signs," Steve said once Tony was seated again. "But Kel could have given us a clear warning, and she didn't. She made her choice. Second-guessing ourselves doesn't help us deal with the situation that's in front of us. There was a way to bring us here, which means there's a way to bring us back. Our friends are going to notice that we're missing, if they haven't already. A rescue is coming. We just have to keep calm and survive long enough for them to get here."

"They already proved that they can contain Vision with that electric net," Clint said. "And the big bosses are powerful enough to take down the Hulk. What do you want to bet both of them are already in custody?"

"But Rhodes is in Wakanda," Steve countered. "That's the best possible position. If anyone has the resources and technology to mount a rescue mission to the Moon, T'Challa does."

Steve was trying. Sam had to give him that. But he couldn't honestly say that the atmosphere lightened very much.

Most of them were keeping their eyes averted from the window. The sight of the Earth hanging above them in an over-bright starry sky was way too unsettling. Wanda, however, was gazing out the window raptly.

"Will we see the sun?" she asked.

Tony looked up. "What?"

"I don't know how it works here," she said, and nodded at that weird alien sky. "Is it night? Will the sun come up? Or is this just what the sky looks like on the Moon?"

"Oh." Tony scratched the back of his neck. "Yeah, the sun will come up. But it's hard to say when. The Moon rotates on its axis a lot more slowly than the Earth does. Daytime and nighttime each last about two weeks here."

Sam saw Jean wince. She didn't say anything, but she didn't need to — they were probably all thinking the same thing. The Brenithi were planning something huge. Getting the Avengers out of the way was just the first step. If the team was still stranded by the time the sun came up, it could be too late.

* * *

Peter woke up with a jolt of panic that left him scrambling for webshooters he wasn't wearing.

(This happened sometimes. Because of the heightened reflexes thing. Usually it was because a pigeon had landed on his windowsill or something stupid like that.)

He looked around the room anyway, just in case.

Something had landed, all right, but it wasn't a pigeon. His window was open, and perched on the windowsill was Kel.

"Peter," she said.

Peter sat bolt upright. "What?" he exclaimed before he remembered to keep his voice down. "What are you… _what_? What are you _doing_?"

"Need to talk to you."

"Okay, but you can't be in my room! You can't be in my _apartment_! How did you even get up here? How do you know where I _live_?"

Instead of answering him, Kel reached into her pocket and tossed him a folded-up piece of paper.

"What's this?" Peter asked as he caught it.

"An address," Kel said. "You need to go there right now."

He unfolded the paper. She wasn't wrong — an address, in English, was written in the middle of it in kind of wobbly capital letters.

"Um," Peter said once he'd read it a couple times. "Okay. This address? Is in Sacramento." He turned the paper back to face her, even though she was probably the one who'd written it in the first place. "And the thing is, Sacramento's in _California_. I don't know — maybe you haven't studied a lot of American geography yet, but California is on _completely_ the other side of the country from New York. I can't just… _go_ there."

Kel sighed impatiently. "Travel is one of your money things, yes? Here."

This time she reached inside her jacket and tossed over a bulging envelope.

Peter caught that, too, and opened the flap. "Holy shit!" he yelped. It was _stuffed_ with twenties and fifties — more than he'd ever seen in his life. "There's like five thousand dollars here! Where'd you get this?"

"Stole it," she said.

Peter blinked. "Okay, you shouldn't… you shouldn't steal money, and— why do you want me to go to Sacramento? Does Mr. Stark know about this?"

"Tony is gone."

Her words landed like a slap and his head jerked back. "What? Gone? What do you mean, gone?"

"The team is gone," she said. "They can't help. You have to leave _right now_."

"No!" he snapped. "I'm not going anywhere until you tell me exactly what's going on! What happened to Mr. Stark? Where is he?"

She turned her head away. "He's alive," she said quietly. "They all are. I managed this much. But they're far away. Trapped. And if you don't want it to happen to you, you need to _run_. Please, it's the only—"

"No, hang on a second!" Because there were things she wasn't exactly saying, but Peter was figuring them out anyway. "Someone captured the Avengers? Do you mean _you_—"

But that was the exact moment that May burst in. "Peter, who on Earth are you talking to at this…" She trailed off when her eyes landed on Kel. "_You_. What the hell are you doing here?"

Kel ignored that. "Go together, if you have to," she said to Peter. "As long as you _go_."

"Okay, but that's what I'm saying — it doesn't work that way! I'm in _high school_. They don't just let you take off for no reason. And — my aunt has a job, and it's the same thing, you can't—"

"_I don't care_ about the problems!" Kel thundered, and something about the way she stepped down from the windowsill had Peter hopping out of bed to put himself between her and May. "Not the job, not the school. None of it matters anymore. Soon I'll be sent to hunt you, and I won't be alone. If you want to live, you have to _not be here_."

"How dare you break into this house and threaten us?" May retorted just as angrily. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't call the police right now!"

Kel rolled her eyes. "Because I blocked your phones," she said. "I'm not stupid. And if this offends you now, you _don't_ want to see what happens if—"

She took a fast step forward and Peter instantly did the same.

"Hey, don't you _dare_—"

But as soon as he got in arm's reach of her, there was a blinding flash of gold and a stunning full-body blow that came out of nowhere. Peter somersaulted backward and crashed into the wall. He slowly sat up, ears ringing, and tried to blink the afterimage out of his eyes.

May crouched down beside him and tilted his chin back. Her eyes were wide, and Peter could hear her breathing fast. He shook his head to tell her he wasn't hurt.

Then she glared over her shoulder at Kel and demanded, "Why are you doing this?"

Kel had backed off. She was right by the window again. "I tell myself there are things Tony might forgive one day," she said. "It's probably not true anymore. But if I let Peter be taken, he'll kill me himself." Then she looked Peter in the eyes and said, "If you try to contact the Avengers, or tell anyone I was here, they will all die and I won't be able to stop it." She slung one leg over the windowsill, and paused. "The next time you see me, fight back with everything you have."

Then she was gone.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning from here onward for discussions and depictions of terrorist attacks.

_Hey, Peter._

_Hey, Peter! What's up?_

_I have a really weird problem, and I don't know who else to talk to._

_Okay. Tell me what's happening and I'll help if I can._

_I think Kel kind of… helped capture the Avengers?_

_Uh. She what now?_

_Yeah._

_Um. Okay. That is definitely a weird problem. Why do you think that?_

_Because she broke into my apartment just now and basically told me? And she also told me not to tell anyone she'd been there or the Avengers would all be killed, so… you _really _can't tell anyone else. _

…_That's a pretty good reason, I guess. Was there anything else she said?_

_Yeah — she's trying to send me to Sacramento. And I need to figure out if this is her trying to help, or if this is her leading me into a trap, and I figured, you do a lot of confidential stuff, and I was hoping you could help me track down the address she gave me._

…

_Peter?_

_Peter. _I'M _in Sacramento._

* * *

T'Challa allotted himself only a few hours' rest, and returned to his office as the sun was rising. The day promised a lengthy series of meetings, all of them contentious. He needed to fill in his advisory council on the threat that Colonel Rhodes had brought to his attention, and he knew that they were not going to be pleased.

The problem was the paucity of facts. The only actual, unambiguous piece of evidence they had was the pair of Kimoyo beads that had been deployed by the hybrid in Germany. There was undeniably a link between the hybrids and Wakanda, but the nature of that link was still unclear. T'Challa could only hypothesize, and each hypothesis seemed worse than the last. Perhaps, as Loki claimed, the Brenithi themselves were behind it all, and they were planting evidence in order to frame Wakanda. Or perhaps it was another group unknown, acting with or without Loki's assistance. Or, worst of all, perhaps Wakanda was indeed the origin of the guilty party.

T'Challa knew the question that he would be asked: would any of these problems have arisen if he had maintained the tradition of keeping Wakanda hidden from the world? If he had, it was quite unlikely that Thor would have asked Wakanda for sanctuary, and T'Challa would have had to refuse in any event. Then Wakanda would not have been made a target of this ongoing conspiracy, and Loki's mysterious trespasses would not have become his problem.

(The question was obvious, and so was the answer. And yet his decision had not been wrong.)

His thoughts were interrupted when a notification chimed: an urgent message had come in from the Foreign Affairs office. T'Challa tapped the blinking icon, and one of the holodisplays on his desk lit up in response.

The video that began to play was an excerpt from a German news broadcast that had aired just a few minutes ago. Apparently the coalition of agencies that was investigating the terrorist attacks had issued a public statement.

It was all quite innocuous at first. Hardly worth the effort of a special report at that hour of the morning. The Avengers were praised for their handling of the confrontation in Stuttgart. The hybrid, now in custody, was cooperating with the investigation.

"In fact," the newscaster said, "preliminary questioning of the suspect has already yielded shocking new information concerning the source of these recent attacks. The alleged terrorist has claimed that he is a Wakandan intelligence operative, and that the plan to create human-Brenith hybrids is Wakandan in origin."

The broadcast cut to a different piece of footage. A man in a blue prison jumpsuit, sitting in a dingy grey interrogation room, pulled back his lower lip to reveal a War Dog tattoo.

"Sources in the Joint Terrorism Task Force have confirmed that these claims are being treated as credible. The German government has joined the United States and a growing number of countries across the world, calling on Wakanda to respond to these allegations."

The sound cut out at T'Challa's gesture. He glanced at his office door to make sure that he was alone, then muttered, "_Shit_."

* * *

With no sun and no clocks, their little Habitrail offered no rhythm to day or night. The seven of them bounced around aimlessly for what felt to Tony like weeks, though it was probably closer to a couple of hours. There was next to nothing in the way of chit-chat: it turned out that the Moon was a hell of a conversation stopper.

They eventually got hungry or bored enough to drink some water and eat some stupid, bland little rice cakes. (And on that subject — _why_? Why was the universe doing this to him again? Hadn't twenty months on Green And White Mush planet been penance enough? Why did every fucking alien race in the universe have such _shitty food_?) Not long after that, the retreat began. One by one, they retired to their rooms.

There were no doors, which was a weird architectural choice for a prison. Tony's guess was that it was a psychological thing — a reminder that the outer walls of the facility were the only things standing between the prisoners and death by explosive decompression. At least the entrances to the bedrooms were offset from one another, affording them a modicum of privacy.

The room Tony had woken up in, which he didn't particularly want to think of as his but also didn't have much of a choice about, was at the end of the hallway closest to the sitting room. Some investigation of the grooves and indentations on the walls revealed that one of them was a dimmer switch for the overhead lights. Tony dialed them down until he was reasonably sure that the faint glow wouldn't be visible to his neighbor across the way. Then he took advantage of the low gravity to hop up to the nearest light fixture and take a look.

It was an exercise in futility, of course. The odds of his being able to reprogram the nanites in the walls into, e.g., a fully functioning rocket capable of surviving atmospheric reentry were, in his professional opinion, low. But it wasn't like he had anything better to do. At the very least, if he could get a look at one of the power sources in this place, then maybe—

Except the moment he reached into the recess in the wall, his right hand started its fun new glowing trick. Gravity seemed to come roaring back, and the sudden pressure all but blacked out his vision. The next thing he knew, he was bouncing lightly off the floor.

God_dammit_.

(It looked a little bit like the Extremis effect. Which Pepper would have been within her rights to find just a tiny bit amusing, though of course she wouldn't under these circumstances and probably wouldn't under any circumstances.)

Pepper. Tony had promised to call her with an update after he'd finished in the desert. No way to tell how long ago that was. She was probably frantic already. And it wasn't like this was the first time he'd vanished off the face of the Earth. How many times could he keep doing this to her before—

No. Not helpful. Stop.

Tony picked himself up off the ground, sat back down on the stupid little cot, and settled into something that definitely _wasn't_ a mope or a sulk.

The low gravity wasn't a problem. Or it _shouldn't_ have been a problem. He went into freefall all the time in the Iron Man armor. Except there was no armor here, no control over his trajectory, just him and some thin walls and an unending sky outside the window, which made this not completely unlike the _other_ time he'd been to space — the time he'd dropped off a nuclear warhead in the center of an alien flotilla and then more or less died.

He knew the warning signs. If he wasn't careful, his brain was going to blow this up into a whole _thing_. And he also knew all sorts of tricks for keeping himself grounded and _here_ as opposed to reliving some inconvenient past crisis or other… but it was a little bit awkward when the person who had taught him that stuff was also the one who had _royally fucked him over_.

So anyway, he was basically settling in for a long night of that kind of bullshit. But then his plans got derailed when a Steve-shaped shadow appeared in his doorway.

Tried to appear, at least. Steve landed on the threshold for barely a moment before bouncing right on past. His hand snagged the doorjamb at the last minute, and he pulled himself back to the ground.

"Not your best entrance," Tony said.

"Yeah. This gravity is something else." Steve's head angled slightly back, like he was looking up at the ceiling. "I thought I saw your light on. Is everything okay?"

"Are you checking up on me, Rogers?"

"Yeah," Steve said, that asshole. "Can I come in?"

Tony rolled his eyes vigorously, which he hoped Steve's night vision was good enough to see. But he also braced himself with one hand so that he could wave an invitation with the other without pitching himself over. Steve made a little hop into the room, and carefully took a seat on the cot next to Tony.

"How are you holding up?" he asked.

Of all the goddamned questions. "I'm on the _Moon_, Steve! How about you?"

"I'm on the Moon, too, as it turns out."

"For that matter, I'm _over_ the Moon. This is the Moon? Swell — I'm over it. I can't believe we made such a fuss about reaching this place fifty years ago. The Moon _sucks_."

It took talent to build up to a satisfying rant while speaking in whispers. Unfortunately, Steve seemed not to be appreciating Tony's skills.

"I know this must be difficult," he said. "You and Kel are—"

"_Were_. Whatever assorted things we may have been to each other, you can safely assume that those relationships are null and void. And if this is your angle, shouldn't Jean rank higher on your triage list than me?"

"Jean is pretending to be asleep," Steve replied. "I'm taking the hint."

Tony sighed and leaned his head back against the wall. "What do you expect me to say?" he asked. "That she was my friend? That we all trusted her with our lives, and she betrayed us? That now I have to wonder if—"

"No, it wasn't."

He glared. "I didn't finish!"

"You're right, I don't know how you were going to phrase it," Steve said. "No, the whole thing wasn't a lie. Yes, she really was your friend."

"How the hell do you know that?"

"The same way you do. Because she fought a war with us."

_God_. Sometimes Steve could be so… _Steve_.

If nothing else, this little interlude was an interesting test of where the two of them stood. Things between them were… fine. Good, even. Averaging out between fine and good. (Which was fine.) They were friends — that was probably the right word for it. Certainly they weren't enemies anymore. They used the team's eighteen-month house arrest to build on the understanding that they'd reached during the war, and that had all been going… fine.

But there were _hey, how's it going_ friends, and then there were _hey, let's talk about the private and personal thing that's freaking me out_ friends, and upgrading to the second one was still a leap.

Steve wasn't pushing. It was the one lesson they'd taught each other over and over until it had stuck.

And for all Tony's griping, as he sat there quietly mulling over the notion of Steve checking on him, he found he didn't _hate_ it.

Eventually, he said, "A factor that's, uh… very likely in play is that this is not actually the first time that someone I was close to betrayed me. It's possible that I'm not coping terribly well."

Steve's head turned. "You don't mean… Was that me? Siberia?"

"No," Tony said quickly. "That wasn't… aside from one withheld piece of information which we won't revisit, you didn't go behind my back, you ran right over me. Different scenario. And you and I weren't that close. No, the thing I'm talking about happened while you were still on ice. When I first created Iron Man." He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. These memories were still… fraught. "He was the closest thing I had to a father after I lost mine. Looked out for me my whole life. Right up until he paid to have me killed so he could take my company."

"I'm sorry," Steve said softly.

"He failed. He's dead. It's done with." Tony straightened up again and tried to shake it off. "You know, you're taking this whole thing surprisingly well, all things considered. Betrayal not a hot button for you?"

Next to him, he felt Steve shrug.

"I agree with Natasha," Steve said. "Kel is working under orders."

"I'd have thought you of all people—"

"No, it's not an excuse. But do you remember that day after First Contact? She made sure we knew that Kith uses mass casualties to make a point. My guess is that this was the bargain she struck: she gets us out of the way quietly so that Kith doesn't have to do it the hard way."

That made a certain amount of sense. Just not enough to make Tony feel any better.

"We're still alive," Steve continued. "That means we still have a chance to get back in the fight. But Jean was right, too: we can't expect Kel to leave the back door unlocked for us. She's going to play her part, and she expects us to play ours."

Tony's brain, always happy to multitask, had been chewing over various comments of Kel's from recent days, looking for clues that he'd missed (and there had been a few).

"'Do what it takes to win,'" he said. "What she said to me back at the compound before the training exercise — remember? 'Tony. I trust you. Do what it takes to win.'"

"Yeah," Steve said. "I remember. She told a lot of lies, but I don't think that was one of them. She's trusting us to win. Let's not let her down."

Tony squinted at the vague dark blur that was Steve's head. "Are you giving me the Captain America face?"

"I don't have a Captain America face."

"Wow. Lying about the Captain America face while wearing the Captain America face. They're going to revoke your Captain America card."

Then Steve turned toward the door. With his hand, he said: _Quiet, listen_.

Tony listened.

Sound carried in the little building. He heard it almost immediately, very faint but still identifiable: the muffled gasps of someone's respiratory distress.

With his finger, Steve traced a J. Tony nodded.

He maneuvered down the hallway. Jean's room was across from his and one door down. A bit of illumination — which looked like moonlight but under the circumstances had to be called Earth-light — spilled down the hall from the front window. There was just enough of it for him to discern that Jean was on her cot, curled up into a tight little ball in the furthest corner with her head buried beneath her arms.

Another of those stupid hops brought him alongside her. Her panicked breaths were easily audible now. She didn't react to his arrival, or to his taking the liberty of joining her on the cot.

"Hey, honey," Tony whispered as he lay down behind her. "You're having a panic attack. You probably knew that already. Though I didn't, the first time. You're not dying. I promise. It just feels that way. Hang in there, all right? It'll pass."

He stayed alert for any signs that she was tensing up further or flinching away from him. Luckily, it seemed that he'd made the right call: after a few shaky gasps, her hand found his and squeezed.

There was nothing else to do but wait it out. The human body couldn't sustain a state of panic indefinitely, even if it occasionally tried. Tony wormed in as close as he could with his chest against her back and his arm wrapped around her. Her grip held firm on the fingers she'd taken hostage, even as the rest of her body trembled.

Tony was no liar. The attack inevitably passed. Bit by bit, Jean's breathing settled back down into a regular rhythm. After a few more minutes, the quality of the silence changed to something that he recognized from the other side: the embarrassed wordlessness of someone who guessed that they were supposed to make the next move but had no idea what it was supposed to be.

Well. Tony could help with that, at least.

"You know, we've got to stop meeting like this," he murmured into her hair. "People will talk."

Her answering exhale carried a tinge of annoyance. Excellent.

"For that matter, some people are already talking. You should have seen Steve's face back at the party, when he asked me if you and Pepper had met. He looked like he was expecting the two of you to get into a catfight right there on the dance floor."

From his room next door, Steve whispered, "I can _hear you_."

At the other end of the hallway, Barton added, "We can _all_ hear you."

Cheerfully and with somewhat more volume, Tony continued, "I mean, just because two people, both of them quite attractive if I do say so myself, just so happen to end up sharing a bed on— what is this, three separate occasions now? That's no reason to go around insinuating that—"

"_Tony_," Jean hissed, "you are _not helping_."

"You're not shaking anymore," Tony said. "I'd call that helpful. I'd say there's been a transference of at least one unit of help."

She exhaled again. "If I sit up, will you stop talking?"

"Never know. Worth a try."

Of course, nothing was that simple in the idiotic low gravity. The two of them had to cling to each other so that neither one ended up bouncing to the ground.

Once they were stable again, Jean leaned her head on Tony's shoulder, and in a tiny voice, she said, "I would like to go home now, please."

"I know, honey. I'm sorry."

"It seems I'm not cut out for space travel."

"When astronauts do this, I'm pretty sure there's some preparation involved. Training videos. Maybe a pamphlet."

She sniffed and wiped her eyes. "Some Avenger I'm turning out to be."

"Because you're having a bad night?" Tony asked. "We don't kick you out of the club for that. I'd know."

Her residual tears were another problem he could fix. He reached behind him and felt along the adjacent wall for the trigger point that was presumably in the same place in her room as it was in his.

But she flinched hard when she heard the scrape of his fingertips. "Oh god, _please_ don't disturb the walls!"

"It's okay, it's okay," Tony said. "There's a thing somewhere along here that spits out tissues if you— there it is." His fingers found the little indentation, and a piece of fabric (closer in texture to a handkerchief than a disposable tissue, but whatever) materialized in his hand. "See?" he said as he handed it over. "Domestic nanotech. Hell of a thing."

"The thought that our lunar habitat is made of Kleenex is not terribly helpful to me right now." She mopped off her face.

"If they wanted to kill us, this has got to be the most spectacularly inefficient way to do it. The walls are fine, we're fine."

"I am _not_ fine."

"All right, we're not fine, but the walls are. I promise."

Jean moaned quietly and put her head back down on his shoulder. Tony considered quipping about how an eavesdropper could take that amiss, but decided that he didn't get another crack at that joke unless she served it back to him first.

Though, on that subject… it wasn't like he didn't get Steve's point. He and Jean had in fact spent the night together, in the fully clothed sense, on two separate occasions on Venen-ka. So, just to set the record straight: was Jean powerful, intelligent, fair-minded, compassionate, resourceful, resilient, and also Amazonian in stature and equally gorgeous in formal wear or combat fatigues? Yep. Green lights across the board. If a thousand details had been just a little bit different, could Tony have found himself head over heels for her? Easily. (Did he have a type? Yeah, probably.) Would he ever hurt Pepper that way? Not in a million years.

He did feel a pang, now and then. A little flicker of wistfulness over another way things might have gone.

But… Pepper. Who was his light, who was his universe, who was the reason he kept trying to make himself better (and the world, too, when he could manage it), who had by some inexplicable miracle _chosen him back_… if changing any one of those thousand things meant losing her, then the price was far too high. It was unthinkable. End of story.

And somehow, in that mysterious way of people with high emotional intelligence, Pepper and Jean had figured out some version of this amongst themselves, and cultivated their own friendship independent of Tony. (Which basically made him the luckiest sonofabitch on Earth, when he was on Earth.)

"I should have seen this coming," Jean murmured, and suddenly they were back to the un-fun topics.

The reflexive denial nearly made it past his lips, but he bit it back at the last second. She wouldn't believe it about herself any more than Tony did about himself.

"We all should have," he said instead. "And we all didn't, because she couldn't let us until it was too late. That's on her. We need to keep the blame where it belongs and focus on our next moves."

Exactly what those next moves would be — other than bouncy — Tony didn't know. But neither of them mentioned that.

"I keep thinking about the… choreography of it, for lack of a better word," Jean said. "It took an incredibly specific set of circumstances to convince Rhodes to split off from the group, and those circumstances just so happened to present themselves in a manner that didn't raise any suspicion. I've know Kel for a long time, and she's not that manipulative."

Tony squinted at her, not that she could probably see it in the dark. "I'm not sure the evidence bears you out on that anymore."

"I don't mean whether she's willing. I mean she isn't that good at people. At predicting what humans are going to do. Someone was coaching her. A human, and not just hired muscle like Adé. Someone with espionage experience."

"Every invasion has its collaborators."

"And the Avengers have a lot of enemies."

Yeah, that was going to be a fun list to go through. "We'll deal with it when we get home."

Then, with just a little more volume than necessary, Jean said, "I can't believe Steve has been gossiping about us."

"I know. Shameful behavior for Captain America."

"I have _not_ been gossiping about you!" Steve retorted, still in that stage-whisper that was perfectly audible. "I asked Tony one question!"

"Nobody cares!" Barton snapped. "We're trying to sleep here!"

"Actually, I was always a little curious," came Sam's voice.

"Me, too," said Wanda.

"Really?" Natasha said. "I thought it was obvious."

"Trying to sleep!"

* * *

Loki did not appear at breakfast. Thor knew that he wouldn't be found if he didn't want to be.

There had been no further news from Rhodes or King T'Challa about the status of the Avengers or their mission. Thor's ongoing fears — that the Avengers had been infiltrated, that some aspect of this plot was designed to target Wakanda — were as acute as they had been the night before. However, neither the Avengers or Wakanda were his responsibility; New Asgard was. Therefore, in spite of everything weighing on his mind, he went to breakfast and addressed himself to the day's affairs.

Morning was his least favorite part of the day. It never used to be so. In his youth, each dawn had carried the promise of a new adventure. Now each day he awoke to the weight of how much work still lay ahead of them. By the evening, there would be some concrete accomplishment he could look to: walls raised, a roof shingled, a field tilled. But that feeling never survived the next sunrise.

For example: there were not nearly enough laborers to construct every planned residence concurrently. Some houses would be finished before others could be started. Which meant that some of his people would be able to leave their temporary cabins and claim their homes sooner than others. Who went first? Thor was king; he had to decide. Did he reward work? (Everyone worked.) Did he prioritize the heaviest losses? (How dare he judge.) Families? The young? The old? How could he possibly choose?

Then there was the coordination of supply shipments from Wakanda. New Asgard was still completely dependent on donations from their host country. Wakanda sent them building materials, tools, food, cooking utensils, clothes and bedding, computers and entertainment devices, seeds and livestock. Each morning, Thor would check in with various groups — the builders, the cooks, the farmers, those who maintained the grounds, those who watched the children — and ask what they needed. Each answer was always _everything, immediately_. And again, it fell to Thor to decide whose needs to prioritize next (except he didn't know how) (except he didn't have a choice).

Beyond New Asgard's immediate needs, there were also great gaping unknowns concerning the future. It was just barely within Thor's capacity to imagine a time when the settlement would become self-sustaining. It would take the passing of a few harvest seasons, but eventually they would be able to feed and clothe themselves. Perhaps they could produce enough of a surplus to begin to repay Wakanda's generosity. But after that… what was the goal? How long would his people remain farmers? What else could they contribute to this world? And would Earth ever welcome their contributions, or would the Asgardians always be viewed with mistrust, as they were now?

Thor had no answers.

For all that his father had taught him about maintaining order in the Nine Realms, _this_ part — the day-to-day business of leading a community — was something he'd never had to learn before. He suspected that it was Frigga, not Odin, who would have known exactly what should be done, for both their short- and long-term plans. What he wouldn't have given for her counsel, just once more.

But his mother was gone. His world was gone. There was only him. Thor sat in his habitual chair in the feasting hall, as he did each morning, and attempted to answer questions and take notes until everyone who wished to speak to him had been heard.

It was mid-morning by the time the audience concluded. When Thor walked out, he found Valkyrie waiting for him on the road.

"So what's going on with the mortals?" she asked.

Yet more questions he couldn't answer. "I'm not sure."

"Are your Avenger friends all right?"

"Apparently so, but I'm not sure."

"How is Loki mixed up in the whole thing?"

"I wish I knew. But I'm not sure."

"Well done. Keep it up."

"What would you have me do?" Thor demanded as he rounded on her. "Leave here and attempt to find them? Abandon all of my responsibilities to New Asgard? Tell our people that their problems are simply too mundane for me to bother with today, and instead I'm off to find myself a good battle?"

Valkyrie arched her eyebrows in a manner that conveyed that she thought he was an idiot. "Thor? I was just messing with you. I don't actually care that much."

He scoffed in disgust and resumed walking. "Don't you have work?"

"Not today. My crew's got a rest day."

"Clearly a mistake. I should rescind it."

"Good luck with that." Valkyrie's eyes flicked to the right. "Though if you're looking for answers, there's someone who might have a few."

Loki was standing next to the kitchen, apparently trying to look as if he'd been contemplating that particular piece of wall by sheerest coincidence and had no idea that Thor would be walking by.

"Oh," he said. "Good morning, brother." He afforded Valkyrie a brief glance. "You."

"I'll let you get on with it, then," she said to Thor, and split off.

Thor attempted to weigh his options… but what he discovered instead was that he was tired. There'd been a moment the night before when he'd dared to hope that he and Loki were truly communicating. But, like so many things, that hope had not survived the sunrise. Whatever Loki knew, he was going to drag it out for as long as possible, for his own amusement. The lives in the balance meant nothing. It was just another version of the same game they'd played so many times before.

Without a word, Thor resumed walking toward the day's active construction site. Perhaps there his efforts would make a difference.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Loki's jaw drop in indignation. Shortly thereafter, a set of footsteps began to follow him.

"Was I right?" Loki asked as he drew even with Thor. "I was right, wasn't I? Your friends have been betrayed."

"Actually, according to Rhodes, the Brenith woman has done nothing," Thor replied.

"Ah." Loki looked momentarily nonplussed, but rallied quickly. "Well, if she hasn't yet, she will soon."

"As you say."

The look Loki shot him was venomous. "Oh, what? Do you think if you tell me how disappointed you are, I'm suddenly going to reveal that I'm the evil mastermind behind it all?"

"Loki, nothing you do could disappoint me," Thor said, "because I have no expectations of you. We've been over this already, haven't we? You're you and I'm me, and neither one of us is going to change. It's not your fault, really. You can't help your nature."

"Manipulation doesn't suit you, brother. You're pathetically transparent at it."

"As you say."

Thor stared straight ahead of him as he walked. He didn't need to see Loki's expression to feel him fuming.

It took several strides more, but then Loki accelerated out in front of him. "All right!" he said, and flung his arms wide. "I'm the one who stole Wakanda's little baubles."

Thor did not break his stride. "Really."

"Yes! I yield. You caught me. I did it. But only because I thought that if I could gain the Brenithi's trust, then I could determine whether their plans posed a threat to New Asgard."

"Really."

"And also because I have been bored out of my mind ever since we landed on this backwater. But mostly the first one."

"Really."

"Stop walking and face me!" Loki snapped, and planted himself in Thor's path. "I'm trying to help you!"

Thor stopped as well instead of mowing him down. "Who approached you?" he asked. "Was it one of the _hirethe_?"

"Of course not. They wouldn't reveal themselves directly. It was a mortal. Probably one of these hybrids of theirs."

"And what did this mortal ask of you?"

"He described the devices he wanted, and told me where to find them," Loki said. "I procured them, then met him a second time to pass them on. Nothing else transpired."

Thor nodded. "So you don't _actually_ know who's behind these events. It could be this mortal himself."

Loki gave a derisive snort. "Please. I know a messenger when I see one."

"And in the midst of all of this activity, it never once occurred to you to tell me that it was happening?"

"Have I mentioned how boring this planet is?"

Thor sighed and continued on his way.

"Oh, what?" Loki demanded as he continued to follow. "There's been no danger to us."

This time it was Thor who slammed to a halt. "Ten humans have been killed already!"

Loki shrugged. "Yes, and it made for passably interesting television. What's your point?"

"Their lives are not a game," Thor growled. "Not to them, and not to me."

But of course it made no impression at all. "I'd ask when you lost your sense of humor," Loki said, "but I'm not sure you ever had one. So now that you know, what do you plan to do?"

Thor drew breath to answer.

But then from behind him came a blast of heat and a sky-splitting crash. An instant later, the shock wave bowled him off his feet and sent him tumbling down the road. A hail of debris, much of it still aflame, stung his skin as it showered down.

With his heart in his mouth, Thor rolled to his feet again and bolted toward the source of the explosion. Loki was bare steps behind him.

Destruction was everywhere. The ground was scorched black from the heat. Burning wood and molten glass sent up plumes of smoke in all directions. The neighboring buildings — kitchen and food storage — had shattered windows and caved-in walls.

Thor slowed his pace when he reached the epicenter of the damage.

Bizarre. To be so attached to a simple little building on an alien world. Asgard had been his home for centuries; the feasting hall had barely existed for a month.

And yet, staring at the empty place where it had stood — nothing left now but foundations and ash — Thor felt an echo of the moment he'd seen Asgard explode. A sudden lurch into freefall, like the bottom had fallen out of the universe. His ears rang with the emptiness of it all.

Loki staggered to a halt beside him. As much as one could ever trust appearances with Loki, he looked truly shocked.

Motion caught Thor's eye, and he looked down. On the ground, in the center of the devastation, light patches began to appear. They bloomed outward like algae on a pond, and formed letters in a human script. The message read:

_ASGARD OUT_

* * *

Pepper was not looking at her phone. Her phone was a grievous disappointment to her, and had been banished to the table in the foyer.

Tony had texted her the night before, letting her know that he and the Avengers were going to be busy with a group of new prisoners. The message had been terse; he'd obviously been distracted. Pepper wondered if the confrontation had been more difficult than he was trying to let on. It wouldn't be the first time.

Still. A text. Barely a dozen words. She'd been expecting a phone call at the very least, if not a stopover in LA while he'd been in the neighborhood. How bad did it have to be for him to—

(_Fretting doesn't help._)

This was the first Avengers-level incident in two years, and it was safe to say that she and Tony were still working out their boundaries. After he'd come back from the portals, Tony had thrown himself into the reconstruction of their relationship with all the passion that an engineer could muster. Right from that first night when he'd showed her his scars, he'd been open and direct with her in a way that she'd never experienced before.

Those weeks had been wonderful.

But there was one issue that couldn't be fixed by Tony's efforts alone, or even by the pair of them working together. It was the piece that had to come from her. Tony was Iron Man, and would be until the day he died. Pepper had to accept that. Hold it in her heart and feel it down to her bones. He could — he _had_ — let go of the all-consuming obsession that had frightened her so in years past. But he couldn't and wouldn't ever excise that portion of his life, and it wasn't fair of Pepper to expect it of him.

So she'd sat with the knowledge of everything that Iron Man could take from her one day, and finally she'd decided that the risk was worth it.

It was easier to believe in that decision when that risk lay at some indeterminate point in the future than when it was right in front of her.

However. The situation had arrived, and she couldn't let her anxieties trick her into reacting disproportionately. Under the circumstances, Tony being out of contact for a couple of days was well within the realm of reasonable. She had no reason to worry.

What she needed, then, was something else to think about. The subject that was _supposed_ to have her focus was the day's agenda. She had blocked off a few hours that morning to review proposals: SI had planted their flag in the clean-energy market and was ready to expand into other environmental initiatives.

However, in her attempts to distract herself from Tony, she'd allowed her attention to be captured by the news instead. In her defense, it was incredibly distracting. Discussion and debate about the hybrid's shocking claims had been airing nonstop all morning. If it was true that the terrorist attacks had been plotted by someone in Wakanda, then the political implications were unimaginable. Everyone was holding their breath to see how King T'Challa would respond.

The news followed Pepper from screen to screen as she made her way toward the front door. In the foyer, she paused to watch the last few minutes of the current broadcast. More and more countries were demanding that Wakanda provide some answers. If this outrage wasn't checked soon, Pepper was afraid to imagine where it might end.

"It's a lie."

The sudden voice had her heart leaping into her throat. Pepper spun in place and found a woman — tall and blonde, in unassuming street clothes — standing behind her.

"How did you get in here?" Pepper demanded.

"I'm sorry," the woman said, and spread her hands. "Please, I'm not here to hurt you. I need your help."

"Who are you?"

The woman nodded toward the screen. "I'm one of them. A hybrid."

Pepper's phone had a panic button, of course — useless if it wasn't in her hand. The phone was still in its place of banishment on the table, two steps away. Her house had security systems which apparently had been bypassed. Whether her verbal panic word would still be registered was anyone's guess. She was alone.

"What do you want?" Pepper asked.

"It's all a lie," the woman said again, and nodded at the display. "Wakanda didn't make us. j'Brenn did."

"What? _Why_?"

"They want Wakanda's vibranium. At least, that's where it will begin. They created us and fabricated the evidence as a way to put political pressure on Wakanda to open its borders. They're going to parlay it into a full-scale invasion." She gestured to herself. "And afterward, they'll have a private, undetectable infiltration force."

The story carried a terrible air of truth. Pepper would far rather believe this of the aliens in their midst than she would of T'Challa, whom she knew Tony respected.

However, she knew better than to proceed incautiously. "Even if all of that is true," she said, "why come to me?"

"Because you're the only one left," the woman said. "The Avengers are gone."

Pepper's jaw fell open. "_What_?"

"When was the last time you heard from Stark?"

Her eyes went to the traitorous phone. "Last night."

"Did you see him? Hear his voice? Or was it just a text?"

_Damn her_. "I…"

"And it didn't sound like him, did it?" the woman continued. "There was none of his style or turns of phrase. In fact, I'll bet the message was only a few words long."

Stiffly, Pepper asked, "What's your point?"

"The Avengers were captured yesterday afternoon. Everything since then has been a fake. They can't keep it up forever, but they won't need to — the rest of the world will be too busy worrying about Wakanda to ask where the Avengers are. You're the last loose end."

She shook her head helplessly. "This can't _possibly_… how could the Avengers—"

"You can thank the half-human," the woman said. "She's the one who set them up. If you don't believe me, call Stark right now. See what happens."

Pepper didn't hesitate. She snatched up her phone and hit the panic button. Happy would be there in minutes.

Then she called Tony.

No answer.

Not from Tony, and not from FRIDAY.

She let the phone ring and ring. Every ring carried her further and further from the reality where there was a simple explanation.

She let the phone ring until she couldn't bear it anymore.

A few seconds after she ended the call, there was a text — ostensibly from Tony.

_Sorry, I'm very busy with the team. Can this wait?_

_I need to speak with you right now. It's urgent_.

A long pause. Then:

_Sorry, I'm very busy with the team. I'll talk to you later._

And she knew.

Very slowly, Pepper looked up at the intruder. "What do you want with me?" she asked.

The woman broke eye contact. "I thought I understood what I was getting into," she said. "I thought the powers would be worth it. I don't care what happens to Wakanda, and that should have been good enough." She paused, and her lip twisted in disgust. "But for the past few months, I've been watching it all happen, and… anyone who puts this much work into a grab for power — human, alien, whatever — they're not going to stop at one country. They're not going to stop until they're stopped." Harshly, as if daring Pepper to judge, she said, "I've got people I care about, too."

_Kel is an enemy agent, the Avengers have been captured, we're on the brink of an alien invasion, oh God, how do I—_

But she stopped. She stilled herself. She had to act from a place of calm. Tony was counting on her.

"What's your name?" she asked.

The woman replied, "Anna."

"You could have gone to the FBI, Anna."

"_Please_. With me being what I am? They'd try to put me in a cage, and if I let that happen, I'd be dead within the day. No, this is the deal: I'll help you free the Avengers. Once they're back on the job, this is _their_ problem, not mine. The only way I survive is if I bury myself so deep the earthworms can't find me, and wait to see who comes out on top."

Pepper imagined that Tony and the others would have something to say about that plan. However, this was not the moment to get antagonistic. "Do you know where the Avengers are?"

"Yes, and I know where they're going," Anna said. "The Brenithi make biweekly shipments to j'Brenn through the Fracture. Officially, they export the raw materials that they buy from us, and they import their prey animals. But the shipments are treated like diplomatic pouches: none of them are searched. The Avengers are being sent out in the next shipment. If they make it off-planet, you'll never see them again."

_Not a chance_. "Even if you can't go to the authorities, I certainly can," Pepper said. "Once enough people know that the Avengers are missing—"

Anna scoffed. "Oh, they would love that. The second you go public, so will they."

"With what?"

"You met the half-human. Or, more to the point, she met you. That means she knows. We _all_ know. You're enhanced and trying to hide it."

Pepper couldn't help it. She jerked back at the bluntness of the words.

The way she coped from one day to the next was to bury that part of her as deeply as she could. Something had been done to her once, but it had nothing to do with her life now. When she'd accepted the invitation to Steve's party, she'd never considered that being in the same room with Kel would give her this invasive internal view. (She'd never considered — and she knew Tony had never considered — that Kel would betray them.) And now the Brenithi knew, which meant…

"You're Pepper Potts," Anna said. "Obviously you can't just vanish off the face of the Earth. They can't kidnap you, but they can discredit you. Proof of your condition plus some doctored footage of the Avengers alive and well, and they can destroy your life without firing a shot."

It was going to end that way no matter what Pepper did. But that fear had been living with her for years now, tightly penned up at the back of her mind along with the powers themselves. She could keep it there for a few days more.

"Do you have a better idea?" she asked.

"The only way this works is if they don't see you coming until the last possible second," Anna said. "The Brenith shipment that I _think_ will have the Avengers in it is due to pass through LAX three days from now. If we hit them there, we have a chance. Until then, you have to keep up the facade that everything is normal." Anna's head turned slightly. "Your security man is almost here. If you haven't been discovered by the end of the day, I'll be in touch."

Before Pepper could protest, Anna slipped through the door into the sitting room — further into Pepper's house, apparently leaving the same way she'd arrived — and vanished from sight.

A moment later, Happy's car came screeching around the corner. The exterior camera recognized him and unlocked the door, and he burst through with a security team in tow, all with guns drawn.

"Pepper? Are you all right? How many are there?"

"I'm fine, Happy," she said. "It was a false alarm."

"Guys, sweep the house, there might be— wait, what?"

She hadn't been sure of her decision until the words had come out of her mouth. "Yes, I'm very sorry," she said, and it felt as though her voice was coming from a great distance away. "I thought I heard someone else in the house, but I was wrong. Everything's fine."

"Everything's fine," Happy repeated dubiously. "You're sure?"

"Yes, absolutely," Pepper said. (Had she ever told a lie as egregious as that one?) She tried to give a sheepish smile. "I guess I'm a little on edge with Tony still out on a mission."

"Uh-huh." Happy looked from her to the black-suited member of SI's private security force who was guarding the sitting room door. "Jackson, report?"

Jackson touched his earpiece. "Nothing, sir. Ma'am. All reports indicate that the premises are secure."

"Uh-huh," Happy said again. He eyed Pepper dubiously, like he was waiting for a secret distress signal, but she couldn't give him one. Not yet. "Then how about we give you an escort to the office this morning?"

"That's fine, Happy. Thank you."

While he corralled the security team, Pepper looked down at her phone, and the text conversation with the person who wasn't Tony.

_I'm sorry. I shouldn't bother you when you're working. I just wanted to let you know that some urgent SI business has come up overseas, and I'll be out of the country for a few days._

She almost would have preferred that there be no reply. It would have been better than interacting with that pathetic, hollow imitation.

Then her phone buzzed.

_Okay. Have a safe trip_.


	11. Chapter 11

Industrial espionage was a known phenomenon, and in the tech industry, that often meant sophisticated forms of surveillance. As such, Pepper's office at SI headquarters had countermeasures strong enough to keep out the CIA. She beckoned for Happy to follow her with a tilt of her head, and once they were inside, she sealed the door and activated all of them.

"Happy, what I'm about to tell you cannot leave this room."

He glanced around at the locked door and the tinted windows. "Yeah, I can see that."

She sat down at her desk and gestured for Happy to take the chair across from her. His brow was furrowed with obvious concern, but he waited in silence while she collected her thoughts.

"First, I owe you an apology," Pepper said. "I lied. There was an intruder at the house."

"Are you okay?" Happy asked. "What happened? Who was it?"

"Before I go into that, you need to read this." She pulled up the conversation with the faux Tony on her phone, and handed it over.

Happy scrolled down the brief exchange of texts, and the lines in his forehead deepened. "That's… that's not Tony," he said. "Tony doesn't… and he would never… Pepper, what the hell is going on here?"

She took a breath. It was one thing to hear the words, and quite another to speak them herself.

"I think the Avengers been taken," she said. "Whoever did it is on the other end of that phone, and is trying to keep us from uncovering what they've done."

"But… you can't just _kidnap_ the Avengers. They're the Avengers!" Happy gestured helplessly with Pepper's phone. "Is this about those… those alien hybrid things? Like that guy in Germany? Sure, he was a pain in the ass, but the team shut him down. And even if they did lose a fight, it would have made the news, right? We would have heard by now."

"Not if the Brenithi arranged to keep it under wraps."

"The— _what_? Okay, I think you need to start from the beginning."

As unemotionally as she could, Pepper walked him through Anna's visit, and the story she'd told.

Happy was silent for a long stretch after she finished.

Eventually, he said, "Pepper… we have to tell people. We have to — God, who do you call when the Avengers have been kidnapped? The cops, the Feds, the State Department, the six o'clock news…"

"Happy—"

"Wait, is this a State thing? Do they do aliens?"

"Happy—"

"What about Bruce Banner? Did they get him, too? Or Rhodey? If these guys actually kidnapped a US Air Force Colonel—"

"_Happy_!"

He broke off and blinked at her in surprise. "What?"

Pepper steeled herself. "We can't go public with this yet."

"Why not?"

It wasn't about self-preservation. She'd known for a long time that her secret's days were numbered. But if she were revealed now, the resulting scandal would give the Brenithi the perfect smokescreen: anything she said would be instantly discredited as an attempt to deflect attention from herself, and with the overwhelming media attention focused on her, it was possible that no one would go looking for the Avengers until they were already off-planet.

"Because…" But somehow the words got lost along the way, and what she said was, "I need to go to Japan."

Happy did a double-take. "Why — what's in Japan?"

"Several of our manufacturing partners, which I hope will give us adequate cover," she said. "I need you to put together a trip, and it has to be absolutely real: staff, security, hotel arrangements, a plausible agenda. For the next few days, I need everyone to believe that I'm out of the country. Do you understand?"

"No!" he snapped. "I mean _yes_, but… Pepper, please tell me you're not thinking of going after them. If anything this woman said to you was true, then we're talking about a literal alien invasion here — you can't stop them by yourself!"

Pepper's chin dropped. She had to tell him. She _had_ to. It wasn't fair to Happy to leave him thinking that she planned to face down her enemies with nothing but a cell phone and a checkbook. (Though in point of fact there was quite a lot she could accomplish with a cell phone and a checkbook.)

"There's something I never told you," she said quietly. "Because it was easier to pretend that it never happened. It was the Christmas after New York. During the incident with Aldrich Killian. After Tony's house was destroyed, do you remember that Killian kidnapped me?"

"Of course I remember," said Happy. "How could I forget? That was… _oh_." He sat back in his chair. "You're talking about your glowing thing."

Pepper's jaw fell open. "My _what_?"

"Sure — that was the Christmas you got, you know…" Happy waved a hand in her direction. "Extremis-ized."

"You _knew_?"

"Pepper, I'm your head of security," Happy said. "The job does involve occasionally paying attention. I figured you'd tell me when you were ready, and in the meantime, since you weren't frying people or blowing yourself up, it wasn't any of my business. But if your new hybrid friend is right and these guys somehow shut down the Avengers, then you still can't go up against them on your own — I don't care how hot you are!"

She blinked.

Happy blinked, too. He looked to the side, and Pepper could see him mentally replaying the audio. "Okay, I think that came out wrong, but you still know what I mean. This is not a one-person rescue op. We need to let people know what happened. We need _backup_."

"The Brenithi know about Extremis," Pepper said. "If I go public, so will they, and then there'll be nothing I can do to help Tony. We have to keep up the pretense that everything is fine, at least for a few days more. Long enough for me to find the Avengers. I have to do this." She glanced at her phone, which was still in Happy's hand. "But I won't be doing it alone."

* * *

_It is lovely to hear from you, Ms. Pepper Potts of Stark Industries, and I have to say, this has been at least the fifteenth weirdest twenty-four hours' worth of text messages I have ever gotten in my life!_

* * *

T'Challa maintained his composure until the last member of his security council had left the audience chamber. Then he leaned his forehead on his hand and indulged himself in a groan of dismay.

The hybrid's public accusations had swept the rest of the world into a frenzy of recrimination. Never mind that he had not a shred of evidence save the tattoo. The man's claim of being Wakandan was being repeated in the news as unassailable fact. Most politicians were being more circumspect about directly accusing Wakanda of having created the hybrids, but the undercurrent was present in every diplomatic statement and public address. If Wakanda couldn't prove their innocence rigorously and conclusively, hostility from their neighbors threatened to spiral out of control.

The meeting had established one piece of hopeful news: it was extremely unlikely that the hybrid who had been captured in Germany was actually Wakandan. Since the news had begun to circulate, no one in the country had come forward to claim the man as a member of their family, and his face was not a match for anyone in the military or War Dog databases.

But there was an obvious consequence that wasn't nearly so hopeful. That particular man might not have been Wakandan, but it was clear that a Wakandan had been helping him. Under interrogation, he'd provided highly specific and sensitive details of Wakandan intelligence operations. Some pieces of information had been out of date, others outright false, but enough of it had been true that T'Challa's Intelligence Director had had to withdraw several of her operatives across Europe and Asia.

The immediate threats, though by no means under control, were at the very least clear. The security council left with their instructions: to secure the safety of Wakandan operatives abroad, to seek out the source of the hybrid's information, and to make absolutely certain that no other Wakandan citizens were assisting the hybrids in any way. If T'Challa issued a blanket denial that turned out to be false, the damage would be profound.

The next meeting, due to start in just a few minutes, was with the Foreign Office. Official responses had to be drafted; a statement to the UN approved. T'Challa shut his eyes and tried to take these moments to temper his anger and frustration. Diplomacy required a cool head.

But the moment of privacy was not to be. A set of footfalls began to approach — a gait he knew well. T'Challa straightened in his seat and turned to face Okoye.

"My king," she said. Her expression was grave.

"General," he replied. "What has happened?"

There was an unaccustomed pause as Okoye steeled herself. "There has been a bombing at the Asgardian settlement," she said.

The news startled T'Challa from his chair. "_What_? Was anyone injured?"

"Not severely," she replied. "Though the explosive device was powerful enough to have killed dozens, if the perpetrators had wished it."

"Do you know who could have done this?"

Her lip curled in disgust. "There was a message left at the bombing site. 'Asgard Out'. It seems that this was an act of terrorism by anti-Asgardian extremists — possibly from within Wakanda itself."

"_Dammit_." T'Challa turned and paced away. "Why set a bomb? Who could possibly resent the Asgardians so much that…"

But as the words formed, he realized what the answer had to be. An answer that Okoye had surely arrived at well before he had.

T'Challa turned back to face her, and his guess was confirmed. Her expression wasn't merely disgust over the shameful act that had occurred on Wakandan soil. There was a far more personal pain lurking there.

"It seems that I'll be making a trip to the western foothills," he said.

Okoye nodded tightly. "I'll assign a security detail."

"And one for Shuri," he said. "I'm sending her to the bombing site to collect evidence. King Thor must be assured that this matter has my personal attention."

* * *

When Rhodes decided to stay in Wakanda rather than rejoin the rest of the Avengers, he had to admit that he didn't have a specific plan for what he planned to do there — just an instinct that the enemy strategy was guaranteed to converge on this place sooner or later, and he wanted to be in place before it did.

Then news of the bombing had come in.

Rhodes couldn't help King T'Challa with the political repercussions. That wasn't his place. But maybe he could help Thor track down the bastards who'd planted a bomb in a civilian population.

This was his first overnight stay in Wakanda, and by far the longest he'd ever spent in the capital city. One of the palace staff had given him a bracelet made of beads — not exactly his personal style, truth be told, but it doubled as his passport through the security shield. There was an automated checkpoint at the southern boundary of the city, and beyond that was the road that led to New Asgard.

(Rhodes had always found it a little antisocial of T'Challa to keep the holograms and the force fields surrounding Birnin Zana running at all times, even after the rest of the world knew the truth about what was hidden there. But now that he'd seen just how quickly public opinion had turned on Wakanda, he had a new appreciation for T'Challa's sense of caution.)

There was no one guarding the gate to New Asgard, which was a little surprising under the circumstances. Then again, the gate was a log resting on two other logs, which didn't make for all that much to guard. Rhodes ducked under it (_nice job, legs_) and proceeded down the dirt road to the center of the settlement.

He was basically accustomed to it by now. More or less. The way that the ground beneath his feet was just a vague suggestion of pressure, and how each stride involved kicking some muscle groups into action and trusting in Tony's hardware to take care of the rest. He knew he was incredibly lucky: between the high-tech prostheses and some empathic repair work, his current mobility outstripped his initial prognosis by a country mile.

But it could still get rough, now and then. Feeling — or not feeling — all those things he'd lost that he would never get back.

(_Imagine losing an entire planet. It's all relative._)

Anyway. The sound of voices soon let him know that he was on the right track. Thor's ringing tones were just audible over the clamor from what sounded like a sizable crowd. Rhodes followed the noise past the rows of cabins where most of the Asgardians still lived, and toward what had once been the social center of the settlement. Debris was scattered everywhere — on the road, between the buildings, on the surrounding roofs.

The damage increased as Rhodes drew closer to the bombing site. Nearby buildings had either collapsed or were on the verge of it. In every direction, he could see shattered windows, missing walls, lopsided roofs. At the center of it all: a massive black scorch mark on the ground, and an empty space where the great hall had stood.

A significant chunk of the settlement, several dozen strong, was gathered in the street. Thor was moving through the crowd, clearly trying to answer questions and offer assurances.

Rhodes wasn't the only outsider in attendance. T'Challa's sister Shuri was poking around at the epicenter of the explosion, taking readings on some kind of device. Two Dora Milaje bodyguards stood watch nearby, spears in hand.

The man who captured the majority of Rhodes' attention, though, was at a cautious remove from the bulk of the crowd, standing with his back to one of the few remaining walls. He had dark hair, a gloomy expression, and — though it was currently out of sight in his jacket pocket — a metal hand. Moving cautiously (but without making it _look_ like he was moving cautiously), Rhodes maneuvered around the perimeter of the scene toward him.

Barnes' eyes might have flicked downward for a second as Rhodes approached. Otherwise he made no acknowledgment of Rhodes' presence.

Not good enough.

"Do you remember me?" Rhodes asked.

After a pause, and what might have been a very faint sigh, Barnes replied, "Yeah. I remember."

Rhodes was staring, he knew, but he didn't much care. _This_ was the guy that Steve had ripped apart the Avengers for. It had been an open secret for a while now that he was hiding out in Wakanda, but he'd always made himself scarce when Tony and Rhodes had paid their visits. Rhodes hadn't seen him in the flesh since that day in Leipzig.

Still not looking at him, Barnes said, "Stark already tried to kill me. If it's your turn—"

"No, Tony didn't try to kill you. Know how I know that? Because you're standing there."

Barnes accepted that with another miniscule nod and no perceptible change in expression.

_So you factor in the Steve stuff and you factor in the legs. You factor in what Tony suffered. Now factor in the part where this guy spent over half a century in the custody of Hydra, forced to commit murder against his will._ In the clutch of so many conflicting impulses, Rhodes had no damned clue what to make of the guy.

Before he was able to figure it out, Shuri straightened up from her instruments and cleared her throat awkwardly.

Thor made his way back through the crowd. "What can you tell us?" he asked her.

She shifted nervously from one foot to the other, and Rhodes was struck by how _young_ she was for the responsibilities T'Challa had given her.

"I've scanned all of the grounds for energy signatures, and there's nothing," she said. "I can assure you that there are no more explosive devices." Her gaze shifted to the lighter patches on the ground — Wakandan letters, which were meaningless to Rhodes. "The words are just a trick. Simple nano that you can buy anywhere. You can just— or I'll do it. I'll get rid of it."

"Thank you," Thor said. "What of the explosive?"

She returned her attention to the gadget in her hand that Rhodes assumed was Wakanda's answer to a tricorder.

"The explosive," she said, and stared hard at the display. "Yes. It was probably… unmistakably Wakandan in origin. Possibly… definitely stolen from our military. Um. I'll have inventories checked. Hopefully we can track down where the device came from and who might have gained access to it."

"Thank you, Princess Shuri."

"Of course, King Thor." She looked around at the Asgardians. "I'm really very sorry about this."

Rhodes kept to the sidelines until Shuri had left and most of Thor's people had dispersed. The only one who stayed was Thor's second in command, the woman who went by Valkyrie. Once they were alone, Thor acknowledged the two humans with a nod, and led the group of them into one of the nearby buildings, which had been a communal kitchen before two sides of it had been blown out.

Waiting inside was the _other_ white guy with long dark hair who Rhodes hadn't been particularly looking forward to meeting.

Loki was prowling around the confines of the burned-out kitchen. When he caught sight of the new arrivals, he muttered, "Charming. More mortals."

"Thank you for being here, my friends," Thor said to the two humans. "It seems New Asgard can use all the help it can get."

Rhodes asked, "Do you have any idea how they got the bomb into the settlement?"

"Well, it didn't take much effort, did it?" Valkyrie said. "The border fence is sticks and some rope."

"Even so," said Thor, "I was in the feasting hall just moments before the explosion, along with several others. It's strange that someone could have planted the bomb without any of us noticing."

"Yeah," said Valkyrie. "Strange." She turned to look at Loki.

He pulled up short and fixed her with a grievously insulted look. "You don't think _I_ had anything to do with this?"

"This innocent act of yours? Getting old."

"First of all, you both saw that I was waiting for you _outside_ the hall when this device must have been planted—"

"We all know that means nothing," Thor said quietly.

"And what's more, I _live_ here!" Loki snapped. "However appalling I might find the situation, this wretched little encampment is my home! Why would I help to bomb it?"

"I don't know," Thor shot back. "Perhaps it will make for passably interesting television."

Loki snarled in disgust and strode out though the missing wall.

Once he was out of sight, Valkyrie leaned over to Barnes and whispered, "Bonus point, storming off."

The building was falling down. Thor helped it along quite a bit when he turned to the support beam behind him and drove his fist clean through it. A large chunk of the ceiling tumbled to the ground just behind him in a cloud of wood chips and dust, and Rhodes braced himself to dodge if even more of it decided to follow.

"I should never have brought Loki here," Thor said, ignoring the debris. "It was a terrible mistake."

Barnes also shot a wary glance up at the ceiling. "Do you really think he helped to do this?" he asked.

"If he didn't help it, then he provoked it," said Thor, and turned back to the humans. "My brother committed terrible crimes against your world. And he continues to commit crimes, albeit pettier ones. If even the Wakandans now want us gone, I can hardly blame them for it."

"Thor," Rhodes said, "I don't know who did this, but terrorists all work from the same playbook. Their positions aren't the majority or anywhere close, and they know it. The only way they can grab power is by scaring the rest of us into giving it away. So don't let them. It isn't just T'Challa who wants you here. This camp was built on donations from across the country, wasn't it?"

Quietly, Thor said, "Yes."

"So don't treat a couple of cowards like they speak for everyone. They haven't earned that respect and they never will. All right?"

After a moment, Thor's expression began to lighten. "Yes," he said again. "You're right, of course."

"The part that gets me," said Valkyrie, "is how much damage they _didn't_ do. If that bomb had gone off when the hall was full, it could have killed most of the settlement. But they waited until the place was empty."

Thor replied, "The reason, I assume, is to tell me that the next time will be worse."

"Also to help their agenda gain traction," said Barnes. "Activists are easier to support than murderers. If they hit too hard too fast, they'll have a harder time recruiting followers. I… can remember Hydra playing this game."

Rhodes gave that a begrudgingly respectful pause. Then he said, "Still. Given the current circumstances, the settlement needs better security. Or any security."

"Yes," Thor said. "Let us begin there."

* * *

Wakanda believed in forging its future while honoring its past. Many citizens lived in Birnin Zana and other cities, but almost as many lived in small villages where life hadn't materially changed in decades or even centuries.

Oh, they certainly used technology to make their lives safer. No one would ever starve because of drought or blight; everyone's water was clean; vibranium-powered tools eased the physical burdens of tending crops and raising livestock. Traditions evolved, but they weren't abandoned. It was common for those born in a village to have family in the city, and vice versa. Most children would spend time in both places before deciding where to settle down, and neither path was considered superior to the other.

Yes, T'Challa _was_ proud of his country.

Wakanda also enjoyed a very low crime rate per capita. They were a wealthy country; a lack of poverty meant a lack of desperation, and this more than anything, he suspected, protected them from much of the strife seen in Western nations. Though of course they had a legal system to deal with crimes when they occurred, Wakanda did not make use of prisons. They found prevention and rehabilitation to be far more useful tools than punishment.

That was why, two years ago, the revolt of the Border Tribe had posed a conundrum the likes of which hadn't been seen before in T'Challa's lifetime.

The Border Tribe was — or had been — Wakanda's first line of defense against an outside attack. They had never, _never_ been meant to launch a first strike. Even after all this time, T'Challa was still shocked at how quickly almost the entirety of the Border Tribe's armed forces had committed to Erik Stevens' cause.

Once W'Kabi and his troops had surrendered, T'Challa had been as merciful as he could. Most of the soldiers had been pardoned. However, it was clear that none of them could ever be trusted to serve Wakanda's best interests again, and in particular, their role as the country's defenders had been irrevocably compromised.

Much of Wakanda's border was naturally protected by the terrain. It was only along the plains to the south where conventional wisdom held that they required a standing army. T'Challa had allowed almost all of the surrendered soldiers to choose new homes within other areas of the Border Tribe's traditional lands. However, there were a few — the highest ranked, those who had commanded their squadrons to follow Stevens' destructive orders — whom he had insisted would be split up and subject to further conditions, such as having their locations tracked.

Among these was W'Kabi.

T'Challa met his Dora Milaje detail at the Royal Talon, and piloted them west to the foothills of the mountains. He could have — likely _should_ have — sent a message in advance of his arrival, but he did not. That choice probably wouldn't make this meeting any easier, but he suspected that 'easier' wasn't a realistic option in any event.

The landing of the jet and the approach of his bodyguards announced his presence well enough. T'Challa descended the ramp behind them and started across the grass.

W'Kabi was sitting outside of a modest hut, shaded from the midday sun by an awning. Opposite him was a large fenced-in pasture where his family's livestock idly grazed. Now and then, an ear or a tail flicked away a fly.

Whatever W'Kabi's initial reaction might have been, by the time T'Challa was standing in front of him, he'd schooled his expression into a blank mask. His eyes darted in T'Challa's direction briefly, then returned to the cattle.

"W'Kabi," T'Challa said.

"T'Challa," W'Kabi responded. "Should I be honored?"

"I don't expect you to be. I would say that it's good to see you again…"

"But you wouldn't insult me with such an obvious lie." W'Kabi leaned back a little further in his chair, and met T'Challa's eyes for the first time. "Why are you here?"

"There has been a bombing in the Asgardian settlement," T'Challa said. "It was either the work of anti-Asgardian extremists in Wakanda, or it was meant to look that way."

W'Kabi gave a snort. "Do you expect me to weep for them?"

"I expect you not to condone acts of terrorism."

"Fine," he said with a shrug. "I don't condone it. You came all this way for my condemnation? Take it and leave."

Striving to hold onto his temper, T'Challa said, "I also expect you to tell me if you have any idea who might have been responsible."

"Why ask me?"

"You know why."

"_Yes_, I know why!" W'Kabi snapped as he surged to his feet, and Ayo flowed forward in response with her spear raised. "But I want you to say it, and I want you to look me in the eyes as you do! Why do you bring this problem to _me_?"

T'Challa did not recoil and he did not flinch. Not from this. "I bring this problem to you," he said, "because the Asgardian settlement stands on land that once belonged to the Border Tribe."

"That was _our_ land!" W'Kabi snarled. "My family lived there for _centuries_! Training and preparing to defend Wakanda with our lives, as was our duty and our birthright. And not only do you take our home away from us, you hand it over to outsiders — to _aliens_! Do you really think, after all of this, that I would _ever_ help you again?"

"Were you defending Wakanda when you tried to ship our weapons across the world and start a war that—"

"I was following the orders of my king!"

T'Challa looked away in disgust. "Stevens cared nothing for our country — only for the damage he could inflict. That man was never a king."

"N'Jadaka defeated you in ritual combat," W'Kabi shot back. "By all of our laws and traditions, he won the throne. He brought us Klaue when you failed. He would have made us strong when all you've done is make us weak!"

"So you would subdue the whole world by force? Is that what you would have us become? How many do you think you would have to kill to remake the world in your image?"

"Better than bowing down before the colonizers who want nothing more than to grind us beneath their heel," W'Kabi said. "It's already begun. This prisoner they have — this hybrid. He is _not_ one of us."

T'Challa sighed. "I know."

"What are they demanding?"

"UN inspections. At least, that's how it will begin."

"This is the first stage of an invasion, and you're playing right into their hands."

It would have been so much simpler for W'Kabi to be _wrong_. If T'Challa could have mourned a lifetime of friendship lost, and viewed the man in front of him now as… as an imposter of sorts. A flawed copy, easily dismissed.

Of course, life was never so clear-cut.

"I know," T'Challa said again. "Wakanda is under attack. Whatever group is driving these events, they must be uncovered and brought to answer for their crimes. If we can agree on this, at least, then perhaps we can agree on the possibility that this bombing is another component of the same plan — a piece designed to fracture us from within."

W'Kabi grimaced slightly, but didn't try to rebut the point.

"You know the border lands better than anyone," T'Challa continued. "I had the weapons caches emptied two years ago. Unless, of course, you set one up and kept it off the official records."

"That would be treason," W'Kabi said.

"You've already been convicted of treason."

"True." W'Kabi looked down as he rubbed his thumb and fingers together, pensively. "Do you think the aliens are behind all this? The Brenithi?"

"I can't prove it yet," T'Challa said, "but I strongly suspect so."

"The hybrid in custody might not be one of ours, but clearly he was coached by someone who was."

"I agree. Do you have any idea who?"

"N'Jadaka planned to send weapons to our War Dogs," W'Kabi said. "What did you do with those who agreed to his plans?"

"They were recalled, of course, and their status was revoked." In fact, over the vociferous objections of his Intelligence Director, T'Challa had commanded the immediate return of every one of Wakanda's operatives. There couldn't have been the slightest chance that Stevens' agenda would survive him.

"Are you sure you got them all?"

T'Challa's eyes narrowed. "According to our records, we did. But in the event that our records are incomplete, do you have someone in mind?"

"There is a man I knew when I was a child," W'Kabi said. "A good friend of my father's. His name is K'Tembe, of the Border Tribe. He left Wakanda over two decades ago, for a long-term War Dog assignment. The last time I heard his name was before Klaue's attack."

It was not a name that meant anything to T'Challa. "Why do you suspect him?"

"I remember his contempt for Western countries, and also his fear of what would happen to Wakanda when we were eventually discovered. He would despise what you've done — perhaps even enough to see you destroyed for it."

"And Wakanda with me?"

W'Kabi shrugged and looked away. "I don't know. A lot can change in twenty years. You wanted a name — now you have one."

T'Challa nodded acknowledgment. "And the weapons?"

"Look two kilometers south of the oxbow lake," W'Kabi said. "The cache is concealed with holographic projectors and requires an entry code, but I'm sure Shuri won't find that an obstacle."

"Thank you."

W'Kabi scoffed. "You know what they want, don't you? If K'Tembe erased himself from the census, then he also lost his access codes for the shield. That has to be his goal: to manipulate you into giving these aliens access to the capital. Which is exactly what will happen if you allow that United Nations inspection."

"I recognize the risk," T'Challa said, "but I fear that the consequences will be even worse if I refuse."

"We have no choice but to find out."

It seemed for a moment as though W'Kabi was done with him. He took a step away and pointedly refocused on the grazing cattle.

But then his resolve wavered. His gaze seemed to skirt around the Dora Milaje before coming to rest somewhere near T'Challa's feet.

"Is… ah. Okoye. Is she well?"

"Quite well, yes."

W'Kabi's gaze lowered further. "Will you tell her that I miss her?"

Coolly, T'Challa asked, "Is that a message she would welcome from you?"

He sighed. "No. I suppose not."

* * *

Ross had been given a translator: a flesh-colored blob that sat behind his ear. As he understood it, the device damped the sounds of alien speech and replaced them with English in the same voice. It was a clever piece of technology, though not perfect. The translated voices tended to sound tinny and hollow, and of course it was disconcerting when the movement of the lips didn't match the rendered sounds.

However, the payoff was that the Brenithi could no longer exclude him from conversations by switching to their own language. It was only fair, after all: if they were to be allies, they should have no secrets.

Ross had been invited back to the New York consulate to observe a training session with a group of newly recruited hybrids, and he had accepted readily. He had to admit, they fascinated him. The group who had attacked the Avengers in the desert, he now understood, had thrown the fight. Their goal had been to uncover the location of the Tesseract cores, and to lull the Avengers into walking into a trap. The man in Germany, too, had planned to fail. No one had yet experienced one of these soldiers at full strength.

An army of one. What Ross had been searching for his entire career.

The more time he spent inside the consulate, the more he noticed architectural features that surely had not been on the official plans. This one was particularly overt: a training arena with a sandpit, a surrounding observation deck, and a three-story ceiling. The Brenithi had done all of the construction themselves, using their nanotechnology to assist. Ross strongly suspected that portions of the building could be reshaped on command, and that if he returned the next day on official business, the walkway he was standing on would have reverted to an innocuous piece of office space.

However, it was a walkway at the moment. It ran along three of the four walls of the sand-covered training grounds, at a height of about ten feet. Small recessed lights occurred at regular intervals along the wall behind him, and brighter sources of light sat below the walkway.

The fourth wall featured the only ground-level door, and that was where the squadron of new hybrids appeared. There were six of them: four men and two women, of various ethnicities. According to what Ross had been told, they had all made the transition to their enhanced state a few weeks ago, and were in the process of adjusting to their strength and empathic sense.

Ross had seen many classes of freshly graduated cadets. There was a certain shining sharpness they all shared: a sense of invulnerability that sat gleaming on their shoulders along with their brand new lieutenant's bars. He got the same feeling as he watched the squadron below him, only magnified tenfold.

The group spread out across the sand and began to spar. Or perhaps 'play' was the more appropriate term. There were a lot of ridiculous flips through the air, of the sort that not even Olympic gymnasts could pull off. The hybrids ricocheted off the walls and each other, casually trading blows that would have killed an ordinary human.

It didn't take long for a clear leader to emerge. He was the tallest of the six, with impressive musculature and blond hair clipped military short. The way he moved conveyed extensive combat training: a formidable opponent even without alien strength. He kicked his current sparring partner in the chest hard enough to send him flying across the arena to crash into the far wall, and laughed as he did it. The other man fell to the ground, leaving a torso-sized dent in the wall. After a moment, he laughed as well.

At the far end of the walkway, Kel was leaning on the rail. Kith's instructions had put her in charge of training the new recruits while Anna was on her mission. Ross had wondered at the wisdom of that decision, and still did. She had no more than human strength: that had been very clear in the reports from the portal incident. Any one of the hybrids could have crushed her.

Well. It wasn't his problem if she got in over her head.

As he approached, Kel turned in his direction and a broad smile lit up her face. Not on Ross's account, of course. She was looking past him at his Brenith escort.

"Gath!" Kel exclaimed. Her voice had the slight distortion that indicated that Ross was hearing a translation. "I didn't expect to see you here."

The other Brenith wasn't overly tall by the standards of his race, though of course he towered over Kel. His black hair was more than shoulder-length, and his horns were unusually short. He slipped past Ross — the walkway was more than wide enough to permit this comfortably — and tapped wrists with Kel in the Brenith version of a warm handshake.

"The _ti-hireth_ thought you would appreciate an assistant liaison, since your responsibilities are growing," he said to her, and nodded toward the collection of hybrids below. "I'm assigned to Earth now for as long as you need me."

Kel turned to Ross. "Mister Secretary, I present Gath verak Gol, shorath j'Brenithi. We served together for many years. Gath, this is the Secretary of State of the human United States."

"Pleased to meet you, Mister Secretary," Gath said, and inclined his head politely.

The one-syllable alien names all bled together, but Ross was pretty sure he'd heard this one before. Then it came to him — that performance in Ethiopia. Kel and her squadron had been the subject of the play, and Gath had been the name of one of her squadmates. By Brenith standards, the fact of his being featured in a public performance meant that he was some manner of war hero, the same as she was.

Collectively, they turned their attention to the training grounds below.

"What do you think of this group?" Gath asked Kel.

"Children with toys," she sniffed. "A few might have potential. We'll find out which ones."

Then she made an easy hop over the railing and landed in a crouch on the sand below. The hybrids' activities slowly tapered off as they shifted their focus to her.

Kel turned her back to the group and moved toward the wall, vanishing from Ross's view beneath the balcony. When she returned, she had stripped off her shirt, leaving herself in trousers and a sports bra.

Her face wasn't the only piece of her that was scarred. Between her shoulder blades was a set of interlocking triangles. Stretched across her ribs was a tangle of overlapping lines that Ross recognized as Brenith script. A simple circular patch sat on her upper arm. And there were more on her lower back and her sides — characters and geometric figures, all composed of scar lines. The Brenithi marked themselves and each other in honor of military accomplishments: scars were a rough equivalent to citations. It was hard to imagine how someone so physically inferior to the rest of her people could have accumulated so many honors, but there the evidence sat.

The two short spears in her hand were almost an afterthought. Each one had a metal shaft, suitable in length for one-handed use, topped with a crossbar and a foot-long spearpoint. Kel tossed one out into the arena, and set the other down by her feet.

Then she went down on one knee and extended her arms at shoulder height, both forearms turned to the sky. Her head bowed and her eyes closed.

This was something he'd never seen before. Quietly, Ross asked Gath, "Is she praying?"

"Our gods don't answer prayers," Gath replied. "But now and then they appreciate a show."

Kel's ritual, whatever it was, concluded. She picked up the spear at her feet and took a few measured steps forward.

It seemed that Ross wasn't the only one who found her less than intimidating. The man whom he'd earlier identified as the leader of the squad looked around at his comrades and said, "_This_ is the half-human?"

"Kill me," Kel said, with a fractional nod toward the second spear.

"You work for the boss," the hybrid responded. "I'd love to take you up on that, but I'm not stupid."

"The challenge is witnessed," Gath announced from the balcony. "By our laws, no blame can be placed on the victor."

The hybrid looked from Gath to Kel, and his eyes narrowed. Slowly, he crouched to pick up the second spear.

Then suddenly he was on the other side of the arena, having crossed the space in a couple of inhuman bounds. He raised the spear in Kel's direction and asked, "Are you sure these are the stakes you want to play for?"

She hadn't flinched at his movement, nor did she turn to face him. "Kill me," Kel said again. "You have one chance."

Personally, Ross prefered the elegance of a guided missile, and the simplicity of a target on a radar screen blinking into nothing. But he might concede that this, too, had a certain beauty to it — the same beauty as a striking snake had, or a breaching great white. It was an act of perfect lethal efficiency: not a muscle twitch or scrap of energy was wasted. Ross's brain processed the event in two separate snapshots, separated by a blur of motion almost too swift to discern. In the first snapshot, the hybrid was sailing in with a superpowered blow that was sure to take Kel's head off. In the second, he was sprawled across the sand, eyes open and unblinking, as a protracted _ggggchhhhh_ emerged from his throat. The crossbar of Kel's spear rested on his collarbone, and the point emerged from the back of his neck.

The death rattle trailed off, leaving the room in perfect silence.

"It's very simple," Kel said. "If you die, then you deserved to die. If you deserve to survive, then you will survive."

She crossed to the corpse, and idly kicked the spear out of its hand. The hybrid's blow had also landed: her upper arm was laid open to the bone. The wound closed as Ross watched, too fast to even bleed.

"Name the error," Kel said.

One of the three remaining men replied, "Underestimating you."

Her head tilted, conveying an unimpressed reaction. "A symptom. Not the cause."

The taller of the two women, an attractive brunette, said, "Believing he was invincible."

"Correct," Kel said. "Repair this in yourselves before you see me again."

They took that as the dismissal that it obviously was and filed out, looking far more subdued than when they had arrived.

This time it was Gath who leaned over to Ross. "The weapon is only as good as its wielder. We will forge you such wonderful weapons, Mister Secretary."


	12. Chapter 12

Meetings at the palace still awaited him. But T'Challa decided to make one more stop first.

Relations between Jabariland and the rest of Wakanda were arguably better than they had been in centuries, in as much as such relations now existed. T'Challa could send a communiqué and reasonably expect to receive an answer (though M'Baku would make him wait a few days for it). The last two years had seen the end to embargos and the beginnings of trade relationships between some Jabari villages and their closest counterparts in the Mining Tribe lands. While the Jabari still kept to their own territory in the mountains, visitors from other tribes were not being turned away.

Small steps, but each one was important.

Still, a few small-scale exchanges were quite a different scenario from an impromptu visit by the head of state.

T'Challa called ahead, and spoke to a member of M'Baku's staff. M'Baku, of course, left him circling Jabari airspace for a good twenty minutes before finally sending a response: clearance granted.

There was a politically awkward moment when T'Challa had to decide whether to bring his bodyguards with him. Okoye was going to be furious with him — and, for that matter, the look Ayo was giving him was pushing the bounds of protocol — but he elected to leave them behind.

It was only the second time he had ever been in the Jabari audience hall. Superficially, very little had changed from the first time, except that T'Challa himself was considerably better dressed. The walls of the hall opened to thin air, giving any visitors a vertiginous view of the mountainside below. The throne was on a plinth at the end of the hall, boldly jutting out over a deep chasm, and there M'Baku sat, expressionless in his ceremonial furs and leather.

T'Challa closed to a respectful distance of the throne. "Lord M'Baku."

"King T'Challa."

"I assume," T'Challa said, "that you're aware of the recent accusations against Wakanda."

"And I assume," M'Baku replied, "that you're here to ask me a question that I'm not going to like."

"Is there any possibility that these Brenith hybrids and their cohorts are receiving help from Jabariland?"

There was silence as M'Baku fixed him with a cold stare. "After all I've done for you," he said at last. "After I and my forces risked our lives to restore you to the throne. After I stood before my people and spoke out in _support_ of your _impulsive, reckless_ decision to reveal Wakanda to the world. After all of this, you _dare_ to look me in the eye and ask _me_ if—"

T'Challa pinched the bridge of his nose. "M'Baku, it has been a trying day, and your sense of humor is not making it any easier."

After another dramatic pause, M'Baku sat back with a chuckle. "All right, all right," he said, and waved his hand. "I'm looking into it, but as far as I can tell, your problem isn't coming from us."

T'Challa nodded again. "Thank you."

"Oh, it's not for you. Trust me on that. You're not exactly popular around here."

"Was I ever?"

"For a few days after N'Jadaka's defeat," M'Baku said. "Of course, you know what happened next."

"How could I justify our continuing to ignore the problems of the rest of the world when Wakanda has the ability to help?" T'Challa asked.

"The rest of the world wasn't _ready_."

"That isn't our decision to make!"

M'Baku gestured around him indignantly. "It's our country!"

"But it's their planet," T'Challa countered. "Just as much as it is ours. Our history is part of their history. Our successes and failures affect them, whether they know it or not. And you can't tell me that people are better off suffering from diseases that we can treat, or dying of famines that we can end. We've done _good_ over these last two years, and I refuse to regret that."

"Sure," M'Baku said with a shrug. "Until a bunch of red aliens come along who do it all better."

"They do _not_ do it better!"

"Of course they do. I saw it on the news."

T'Challa looked away in disgust. M'Baku was being deliberately provocative, of course, but his underlying point was unfortunately valid.

Wakanda had no need to turn a profit off of other people's suffering. They had donated medical technology and other resources, as well as considerable sums of money. Perhaps more to the point, their various outreach initiatives focused on communicating directly with members of the communities who had asked for help. After all, the individuals themselves knew far better than T'Challa did what they and their neighbors needed. This policy occasionally trod on the toes of governments, corporations, or militia forces who had a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. T'Challa took this as a badge of honor: anyone whose position was that people without food and water deserved to stay that way was someone whose toes had it coming.

The Brenithi, meanwhile, took a different approach. From the beginning, they had focused on forging relationships with the world's most powerful governments (Wakanda excepted). They came to the table with proposed trade deals, with patents for sale and contracts up for bid. That near-miraculous organ regeneration technology recently unveiled, which admittedly rivaled anything in Wakanda's capability? Coalitions of biotechnology companies and venture capitalists had paid dearly for the rights to experiment with Brenith tissue. Now that their formula showed promise, they were inevitably going to turn around and charge even more for its use.

The very wealthy loved the Brenithi, because the Brenithi were going to make them even more wealthy. The less wealthy also loved them, because somehow the spectacle of extreme wealth pleased people even when they weren't able to share it.

Thousands of lives saved didn't seem to count when they were the wrong lives.

"I can't control public perception," T'Challa finally answered, knowing how weak a response it was. "I can only do what I think is right."

"Well," said M'Baku, "thanks to all that 'right' you've been doing, I hear the United Nations wants to send inspection teams here."

"Yes. There is a fear among certain of my advisors that this is cover for an invasion force."

"It probably is. What do you think will happen if you refuse?"

"Wakanda will fall under even more suspicion," T'Challa said. "Perhaps even to the point of open hostility."

M'Baku shrugged. "Which we could win easily."

"That isn't the point! I will not pit Wakanda against the rest of the world unless we have absolutely no other choice."

"Then you know what you have to do," M'Baku said. "Let them in."

* * *

"I know our options are limited, but we really need to find some way to structure our time," Steve said.

Which obviously made the whole thing his fault.

~~

Clint and Natasha sat cross-legged on the floor and stared each other down over their respective hands of cards.

"Confront," said Clint.

"Evade," said Natasha.

"That's from _Deep Space Nine_," muttered Jean.

The two players reached out. Swiftly, rice cakes were slid back and forth across the floor, one after the other, in a manner indecipherable to the casual observer. Clint, apparently edged out of the mutually agreed-upon game board, stacked two of them on top of each other and stuffed them in his mouth.

"And that's just _gross_," said Sam.

Jean asked, "Aren't there nanites in the floor as part of the cleaning system?"

"Yes," said Wanda, who was watching the game intently. "That's why they have to keep moving the cakes around. I think you lose a point if one of yours gets recycled."

"Thanks for making it even more gross," said Sam.

Spraying crumbs, Clint said, "Do you have any threes?"

"Go fish," Natasha said. "Do you have any sixes?"

"_God-fucking-dammit_."

Wanda turned to Steve and asked, "Is this what you meant?"

"No, it absolutely is not."

~~

"We can teach you the rules. It's not that complicated."

"_No_," they all said.

~~

The thrill of watching Clint and Natasha wore off pretty quickly, which brought the question around again.

"Truth or Dare?"

"First," Tony said, and pointed at Natasha, "I'm not playing Truth with her. Second, what the hell kind of dare could you even come up with here?"

"I dare you to lick the window," Natasha said.

"_See_?"

Sam, with his hand over his eyes, said, "Can we _please_ look for ideas that are a little less 'middle-school sleepover'?"

Very mildly, Natasha said, "I never had a sleepover. Or went to middle school."

There was a lengthy pause. Then:

"I Never?"

"No."

"_Hell_ no."

"Two Truths, One Lie?"

"Marginally acceptable."

~~

"The Moon sucks. The Moon _really_ sucks. The Moon is awesome."

"Stark, if you're not even going to _try_…"

~~

"I swam competitively in college. I have never been to Japan. I got my driver's license when I was nineteen."

"Come on. It's not 'one mundane thing that turns out to be false', it's 'two unbelievable things that turn out to be true'."

"Okay, who made Barton the Two Truths, One Lie police?"

"Stark could always punch Cap in the face again. That's good for some entertainment."

"_Jean_! Jean is our new punching story! When you have someone who punched Nick Fury in the face and someone who _didn't_ punch Nick Fury in the face, the person who didn't punch Nick Fury in the face is clearly off the hook!"

Natasha's eyes narrowed as she looked Jean up and down. "Not swimming. With your build, I'm guessing volleyball."

"_Dammit_."

~~

Their respective tolerances for party games varied widely. Clint and Natasha, who would compete over anything, were in it for the long haul. Steve was too, because apparently he'd gotten his 'team leader' mixed up with his 'camp counsellor'. The rest of them weren't quite so committed.

Jean was the first one to drift away, under the flimsy pretext of needing some water. When she didn't return, Tony was more than happy to make his own excuses and go after her.

The building was not difficult to search. He found Jean in the kitchen, leaning against the counter and contemplating the glass of water in her hand.

"Hey," Tony said, and settled in beside her. "What's up?"

She was still for a long moment — plainly trying to choose from among multiple topics that were weighing on her.

Eventually, she made a subtle gesture with her free hand and said quietly, "We're being watched."

"Is this observation or conjecture?" Tony asked.

"Conjecture, I suppose." She circled her wrist, very gently, and the water in her glass swirled in response. "I've been thinking about what would be different, if anything, if Vision were here. The walls wouldn't stop him, and I assume that the vacuum wouldn't, either. The only issue that remains is distance. On Venen-ka, his top speed seemed to me to approximate highway driving, and — forgive me, you know I'm not a scientist, but I believe that the Earth is a very long way away."

Tony wasn't seeing the link to surveillance yet, but he trusted that she would get there.

"You're not wrong," he said. "The trip would take Vision a couple of months."

She nodded. "So the prison itself would have functioned just as well. The obvious problem is how to incapacitate and convey him here. He can be trapped by energy fields. We saw that in Germany. But that's a short-term solution at best. Far too error-prone for a trip that I assume took at least a few hours." Jean gave the glass in her hand another little swirl. "If it were me, I would never try to transport him, or for that matter bring him anywhere near us. All I would do once I had his attention was stand him on a pressure plate and show him a video of us up here, and say that if the weight on the plate changed by more than a tenth of an ounce, our life support would be terminated."

"A tenth of an ounce," Tony said. "Very precise. Though the modern-day supervillain generally uses the metric system. I can see you've given this some thought."

"I'm on the Moon. There's little else but time to think."

"Conceded."

"In any event, you asked how I arrived at surveillance," Jean said. "The same principle works for Bruce. The _hirethe_ can overpower him, but long-term guard duty is beneath their dignity. So put him in a room and show him this camera feed, and the job is done."

He understood exactly what Jean was doing, because he'd watched her do it on Venen-ka. Her standard response to stress was to hyperfocus on tracking details and playing out contingencies. It made her a formidable general, but in circumstances where she couldn't act on any of the scenarios in question, it tended to spiral inward.

"Fiendish," Tony said. "But I actually have a more pressing question, if you'll forgive the change of subject. When you say 'volleyball', I can't help but wonder…"

She sighed her little sigh. "Go ahead."

"Beach?"

"Indoor."

"Ah. Either way, I'm intrigued at the revelation that you were a jock."

"I was an NCAA Division One athlete, thank you. It wasn't ROTC, perhaps, but it paid my way."

"You were a _jock_."

She rolled her eyes, the last refuge of the person who knew she couldn't win the argument on the merits. "Fine, if you insist, I was a jock. Incidentally, I know what you're doing."

"Of course you do. You're very perceptive. Is it working?"

"Well, you're annoying me and breaking my train of thought."

"So it's working."

That time, Jean almost cracked a smile. "What were you in college?" she asked

"Fourteen," Tony said.

"Ah."

"Yeah. I wasn't the most popular kid on campus." His face went hot at the surprise influx of memories. "Rhodey was the first person to… you know. Try and see if there was a person underneath the smartass and the showoff."

"I didn't realize the two of you went back that far."

"Yeah. Sorry — follow-up to the volleyball question: you don't still have the uniform, do you?"

"Tony."

This time, Jean tipped her glass in the direction of the counter and sent a bit of the water flying — slow-motion, in an arc that was much too broad — toward the counter. Tony knew what would happen because he'd tried it himself: once the splash of water landed, there would be a delay of about fifteen seconds before the maintenance nanites kicked in and the countertop cleaned itself.

"It's a clever choice of location," Jean said as she watched the water she'd spilled. "The Moon. It might occur to us — I'm sure it's occurred to you — that if we want to prompt a visit from our jailers, we could try damaging some subsystem or other. But given the hostile environment, it's a high-risk play."

The surface of the counter seemed to ripple as the nearby nano came to life and sucked up the spilled water.

"Of course," she added with a pensive tilt of her head, "we might choose a different target."

Her hand tightened on the glass until her knuckles went white, and this was _exactly_ why Tony had been trying to steer them away from running hypotheticals.

"_No_," he said firmly, and plucked the glass from her hand. "Bad plan. _Terrible_ plan. Besides, it won't work. The glasses are nano: they don't shatter, they disintegrate. No cutting edges."

"How do you know?"

"Because I tried it this morning. And that look?" He leveled a finger at her sudden thunderous glower. "That look right there? That's why it was a bad idea when I did it and a bad idea when you did it, so knock it off."

"I need to be _doing something_."

"I know." Tony set the glass down behind him, consigning it to the same recycling process as the spilled water. "Right now, holding it together _is_ doing something."

Raised voices suddenly sounded from down the hall, and they both turned to look. An argument was going on in the front room, but it sounded more like a rules-lawyering sort of argument than one with any real bite to it.

Jean asked, "Does getting overinvested in party games also count as doing something?"

"In these circumstances, unfortunately it does."

"There's one more thing I keep coming back to," she said once the voices had subsided. "How they brought us here. There's a missing piece there. Something I can't see. They must have used a ship. I'm _certain_ of it. The Brenithi have better technology than we do, but not to the extent of teleportation devices. But I'm guessing that you can't just…"

"Launch a mission to the moon without someone noticing?" Tony said. "No, you can't. Defense satellites would have picked it up."

"So either people did notice and there was a cover story — which doesn't seem entirely congruous with the theme of getting the Avengers out of the way quietly — or there's something we don't know."

He wondered if Jean wasn't dismissing a cover story too quickly. The Brenithi and their nanotech-augmented construction capabilities had as good a chance as anyone at getting a lunar mining operation underway. If this whole thing had been aboveboard and not a stealth invasion, Tony would have expected negotiations for mining rights to find their way to the table within the next couple of years.

So there _were_ conceivable ways to cover a trip to the Moon. On the other hand, if something was setting off Jean's alarm bells, then Tony wanted to pay attention. She had good instincts.

(_Not quite good enough to keep us out of this mess in the first place_, he added to himself, snidely, and immediately felt guilty for it.)

To cover, he said, "You could be right. I don't have an explanation. We'll find out when we get back."

The look Jean flashed him seemed slightly wry, like she'd caught the thought he'd tried to suppress. Or maybe that was just his own paranoia. In any event, they were interrupted from exploring the matter further by the sudden arrival of the rest of the team.

"Wanda broke the game," Clint announced as he came in for a landing. "We need a new idea. What's going on in here?"

"Jean and I were just reminiscing about college," Tony said. The kitchen was not large, and he had to squeeze in closer to her to make room for the abrupt surge in population. "How did Wanda break the game?"

"By taking the instructions a little too literally," Natasha answered.

"You said to say two truths and one lie," Wanda said, with the air of someone who was getting tired of repeating herself. "That's exactly what I did."

"Yeah, but about _yourself_," said Sam. "Stuff about yourself, from the past. Not about all of us in the future!"

Tony looked sharply at Steve, whose expression could indeed be interpreted as that of a person who did not know how to respond when a game of Two Truths, One Lie made a hard left turn into prophecy. He caught Tony's eye, and gave a faint shrug.

"I think we need a new idea," Steve said. "Does anyone else have a suggestion?"

Jean turned to Natasha and said, "Show us what you and Clint were doing with the disks."

* * *

As they got to work on cleaning up, one of Rhodes' longstanding questions quickly got answered: the Asgardians were _strong_. All of them. Even the ones who didn't have 'God of' in their name.

(Though, in fairness, he wasn't positive that the civilians _didn't_ have 'God of' in their names. For all he knew, the guy sweeping up debris next to him could have been the God of Brooms. It wouldn't have been the weirdest thing he'd heard in his life, and maybe not even the weirdest thing he'd heard that week.)

Anyway, it was clear that he couldn't haul away wreckage nearly as fast as anyone else in the settlement. But he could still pitch in wherever he could. Thor kept the majority of the Asgardians away from the site of the bomb, leaving the cleanup to a select few including himself, Rhodes and Barnes. Rhodes let the super-strength folks pick up the giant hunks of timber while he focused on collecting the smaller fragments of wood and glass.

It was a solid day's worth of work, which conveniently helped keep his mind off the team. He knew that they had prisoners and power cores to look after, and the last few hybrids to track down. They had more than enough on their plates. One day was hardly cause for concern. They could take care of themselves.

Then he started thinking of every time he'd told himself that Tony could take care of himself, and the Tony-centered disaster that had inevitably followed.

No question — as soon as he got back to his room in Birnin Zana, he was getting ahold of a goddamn Avenger.

So he had a few things on his mind as he was making his way toward the gate, which was why he didn't notice the guy lurking in the shadows until he was practically on top of him.

"_Jesus_," Rhodes yelped when a patch of darkness suddenly resolved itself into a person. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Watching," Barnes said.

Rhodes turned to look in the direction he was staring, and found nothing but the sides of buildings.

"Good," he said. "Good and creepy. You keep that up, I guess."

His back was aching and he was getting more concerned about Tony by the second. Whatever Barnes had going on, Rhodes wasn't interested. He lurched his legs back into gear.

Barnes waited until he was almost out of earshot before he said, "It wasn't for me."

Oh, goddammit. "What?"

"I wouldn't have let them, if it was just for me. We thought there was an imminent threat."

Rhodes turned in place on the legs he could hardly feel. "I've heard the story," he said. "Good intentions didn't break my fall. Is that what you were lurking for — to tell me that?"

The shadow shifted. "No. Not just that." He paused. "Sometimes part of the job was to report on the aftermath."

_Oh_. Rhodes felt a chill on the back of his neck. He took a slow look around the camp, or what little he could see of it from where he was standing. "You think our guy is still watching?"

"Not sure. But if he isn't now, he was." Barnes stepped out from the shadows, hands in pockets in his usual posture. "Asgardians and humans look the same. I know everyone who lives here by sight. So does Thor. But they don't all know each other. People tend to work and socialize in the same groups. An unfamiliar face might not raise alarms."

Rhodes found himself taking a few steps closer. "You think he infiltrated the place? Bold."

"Thor always starts the morning in the great hall," Barnes said, "but how long he stays there depends on the day. The bomber had to be on the inside already, waiting for his chance to plant the device. Means he knew the territory."

"Okay. But even if he had a hideout inside the settlement, he would have still needed to observe the place from the outside first."

"Yeah," said Barnes. "You up for a walk?"

The terrain was decent for walking and for farming, and not great for setting up a surveillance nest. They were on grassy plains: the land was more or less flat, with low-lying grasses and a few isolated trees. To the north was the capital city — not likely that their guy set up in that direction. Wakanda's border was several miles to the south, and east and west there was nothing but empty space.

Rhodes and Barnes crossed the fence and began to reconnoiter. The great hall had stood more or less in the center of the settlement, between the residential areas on one side and farming lands on the other. In terms of sightlines, east was a better bet than west: the only obstacles were recently planted fields and some goat and sheep pens.

As they walked, Rhodes caught Barnes occasionally glancing sidelong at his leg braces. That was okay, because Rhodes was occasionally glancing sidelong at Barnes' metal arm.

Barnes kept his hand stuffed in his pocket as he walked, which meant that at the moment, he looked normal. (More normal than Rhodes himself would ever look again.) However, Rhodes had seen the prosthesis at work earlier in the day. Tony had destroyed the original back in Siberia — a fact that he'd confessed with a weird mixture of righteousness and shame. This was a new model, apparently built in Wakanda using the same basic design of smoothly shifting metal plates. Barnes was strong and the hand was stronger: he'd been hefting the same ten-foot fallen crossbeams onto his shoulders as Thor and Valkyrie. The artificial hand seemed to function with all the dexterity of a real one. Rhodes wondered if it could feel pain.

Speaking of pain: it had been a long day, and Rhodes' back was letting him know about it. His altered gait put extra strain on his core muscles that the braces couldn't entirely compensate for. Thanks to ongoing PT and practice, he was miles ahead of where he'd been six months ago — back then, a full day's labor like this would have probably been out of reach. But still, it was a pointed reminder of the way things had changed. Not the same guy, not the same body, never would be.

Blame was useless, and generally Rhodes didn't indulge in it. It was combat; shit happened.

A bit tougher to hold to that when the guy at the center of the whole mess was four feet away from him.

Their slow stroll around the perimeter eventually brought them beyond the pastures to the undeveloped land outside the settlement. At this range, he could see that the terrain wasn't quite as flat as it had looked from a distance. There were some gentle rises that were worth investigating.

Barnes turned to survey the campsite, shielding his eyes with his hands. Steve had enhanced vision; Rhodes assumed that Barnes had the same.

"That's where I'd set up," Barnes said, and pointed.

"Then let's take a look."

The two of them started up the rise. (Hills had been a particular challenge to Tony's design skills — stairs were easier — and Rhodes thought that the braces still got grumpy when he made them climb.) Barnes made it to the top first. For a second, it looked like he was about to offer Rhodes a hand. But it passed. By the time Rhodes drew level with him, Barnes was studiously contemplating the ground.

"You got something?" Rhodes asked.

"Yeah. He was here." Barnes dropped to a crouch and poked at something in the dirt. "A while. Two, three days."

Rhodes stepped around him and continued over the crest of the hill, such as it was. It became a bit steeper on the other side. There was a hint of an indentation in the grass where a person could have lain in wait. The spot where Barnes was poking around was approximately where the prongs of a bipod would have sat.

Between their position and the settlement was nothing but grasslands and grazing sheep. Damage from the explosion was clearly visible, and so were Asgardians going about their business. Some were coming in and out of the barn that adjoined the pasture, and more could be seen walking between the surviving buildings.

"There's no way to get from here to the fence without being seen," Rhodes said. "Not in daylight. So he spent a couple days getting the lay of the land, picked out a place in camp to lie low — probably scouted it in advance — then made his move last night. Got himself in position and waited for his chance."

"Sounds right." Barnes stood up again. "Wonder what was so special about today."

"This coming just hours after Wakanda is accused of creating the hybrids?" Rhodes said. "It's connected. It has to be."

"These hybrids," Barnes said. "You tangled with one, right?"

"Yeah."

"What did you learn?"

"The guy was damn strong," Rhodes said. "He put Steve through a wall as easy as swatting a fly. He had Wakandan tech on him, and you do not want him touching your skin."

Barnes nodded. "And the extra sense they've got. Did you see how that works?"

"I could see how fast he was. It's hard to tell how much of that was reflexes and how much was alien empathic crap." Rhodes frowned. "Why are you asking about this now?"

Barnes looked past him to the settlement. "Like I said. Sometimes part of the job was reporting on the aftermath. At first I thought he'd be out here. But if this empathic thing means he can watch without needing line of sight…"

Oh, that was _not_ a good scenario.

"How many combatants has Thor got?" Rhodes asked.

"Him and Valkyrie. The rest are civilians."

"Then we better get him and Valkyrie on the alert right now."

They headed back to the settlement as quickly as Rhodes' legs could manage.

New Asgard was in the process of prepping dinner. (Rhodes had been invited to join, of course, but he'd been too anxious to get back to the capital city and start making phone calls.) In the absence of a dining hall, Thor had ordered that temporary picnic tables be set up around the construction zones, out of range of the debris field. More and more Asgardians were finishing up their chores for the day and heading in that direction.

All Rhodes and Barnes had to do was show up and look grim. Thor joined them immediately.

"Has something happened?" he asked.

Rhodes said, "We think the bomber watched the settlement from a site about a mile east. The problem is, we're also starting to think the guy could still be somewhere on the premises."

Thor frowned. "Isn't it more likely that he made his escape in the confusion?"

"There's useful data here," Barnes said. "How you all responded."

"And if the bomber is a hybrid, all he has to do is hide somewhere on the grounds," said Rhodes. "He can get all the information he needs without showing his face."

Thor's gaze shifted from the pair of them to the residences beyond. His hands flexed into fists.

But then he pulled himself back. "If what you say is true," he said, "then this man plans to leave surreptitiously, I assume after dark tonight." Thor paused, and this time he glanced at the group gathering behind him. "If we force a confrontation now, I fear that innocent lives will be put at risk."

"Thor," said Barnes. "He's here. I know it. This might be our best chance."

"Perhaps," Thor said. "But this is no battlefield. Rhodes, you fought one of these creations before. Are they powerful enough to threaten Asgardians?"

"I don't know that much about your people," Rhodes said, "but the hybrids outmatch Steve physically, and I couldn't guess how their weird skin powers stack up against Asgardian physiology." It was killing Thor to hear it — Rhodes knew because it was killing him to say it. "If we throw down here, he could do some real damage before we can stop him."

"Then I have no choice," said Thor. "Let him go. He won't get a second chance so easily. That's all we can do."

"Interesting."

The voice came from him, and Rhodes spun in place.

"In fact," the man continued, "that was the only interesting thing to happen all day. Our intel described you as foolhardy. At least I have one new piece of data."

There was a whole lot of new data Rhodes was processing, like _black male, mid-fifties, Wakandan accent_, and _trousers and a t-shirt like he was out for a walk_ and _strolling around the corner like he goddamn owns the place_. The man stopped barely thirty feet from the Asgardians gathering for dinner, next to a two-story house in mid-construction. It was a sufficiently distant position not to read as an immediate threat, but also close enough that he could be smack in the middle of the picnic tables with a couple easy leaps.

Thor took two fast steps before he caught himself. "You've done what you came here to do," he growled. "Now _leave our home_."

"No, you have that backwards," said the hybrid. "This is _our_ home. _Our_ land. And I'm going to take great personal pleasure in—"

Which was the moment that the sword punched through the wall.

The hybrid would have been skewered clean through if he'd been a split-second slower. But he spun clear just in time and the blade hit empty air.

It withdrew just as quickly as it had appeared, and the next thing that punched through the wall was Valkyrie.

Thor and Barnes rushed forward as Valkyrie rounded on her target and stabbed out with the sword again. The hybrid backpedaled and dodged — another clean miss. His expression didn't waver from one of mild interest. A hop carried him to the roof of the house, which was just a wooden frame overlaid with tarp. He stepped through a gap and vanished from view, and a second later Valkyrie leaped after him.

"Keep him inside!" Thor shouted as he barrelled through the hole Valkyrie made. Barnes swung around to hold the perimeter.

Two gods and a supersoldier weren't enough to make this guy break a sweat. Rhodes was just a guy with a broken back.

But he also had a best friend who liked to prepare for contingencies.

The leg braces were designed to be wearable inside the War Machine suit. In other words, they were designed to be there in case the suit was disabled and there was still some shit going down. Rhodes tapped the face of his watch against the band on his other wrist, and felt the repulsors slide out to envelop his hands. Then he touched the pair of controls on his hips. A faint hum picked up in his bones as the backup system powered up.

The plan to keep the hybrid inside that house lasted about five seconds. Valkyrie came flying through the wall again, only this time it wasn't her idea: she hit the ground in a shower of drywall and tumbled backward.

"He's making a run for it!" she hollered, and flung herself back in.

The emergency flight system didn't have that much juice to it, but it could boost him over a roof. Rhodes flexed his wrists and lifted off (faint pressure through the legs, suddenly increasing at his lower back). Cool air buffeted his face as he cruised overtop of the house. More components were unfolding themselves as he flew, climbing up to his shoulders and back down his arms.

This particular house was not going to be completed on schedule. Rhodes swung around in time to see a third body-sized hole get punched through one of the walls. It was the hybrid this time, with Thor hot on his tail. But instead of running, the hybrid planted himself and kicked Thor in the face, then spun to cut his legs out from under him.

_Then_ he turned to run — and instead met Barnes' fist.

The impact knocked him back into Thor's grasp. Thor gripped his arms… and released again with a yell of pain like he'd gripped two hot pokers. The hybrid kicked again, and managed to launch Thor off his feet and back into the increasingly shaky structure. Then he turned to deal with Barnes.

The metal hand was in play. Rhodes angled his flight path to circle the action. Barnes was fast and agile enough to keep out of the hybrid's reach, but not strong enough to control him for more than a second. The hybrid ducked a punch and took a swipe at Barnes' face — Barnes snatched his wrist out of the air and the metal hand squeezed.

Rhodes landed and braced himself against the kickback, and fired the repulsor on his palm.

It was an all-or-nothing move. Every scrap of energy the emergency backups could muster was channeled into one burst.

And the timing was perfect. Direct hit center mass, and the hybrid folded up with a groan. Barnes redoubled his grip and forced him to his knees.

Thor and Valkyrie moved to flanking positions. Valkyrie had her sword aimed square between the hybrid's eyes.

"Not bad," he said, breathlessly. He slowly straightened up, revealing the broad circular burn on his chest. "Slightly more entertaining than I'd expected. However, I do have another meeting."

He opened his free hand. There was a small electronic device. A red light flashed and—

_LIGHT_ and _SOUND_ obliterated the universe and Rhodes reeled back with his arms wrapped uselessly around his face.

(_God, I forgot how much flash grenades suck_.)

When his vision cleared and his ears stopped ringing, he found himself on his knees, facing an empty piece of grass where the hybrid had been.

"When did Midgardian weapons get that annoying?" Valkyrie asked as she massaged her temples.

Thor asked, "Is anyone hurt?"

"I'm good," said Rhodes. "You?"

Thor spread his hands. The 'grabbing two hot pokers' imagery persisted: both palms where he'd touched the hybrid's bare skin were red and blistered. "He's not nearly as strong as a true Brenith," Thor said. "If he had been, he could have killed me."

"We were only out for a second," Barnes said. "He's still here somewhere."

Yeah. Rhodes dusted himself off and stood up. The legs were still working, but they were sluggish in the way that meant the power source was about to give up the ghost. He'd be lucky to make it back to the capital on his feet. Combat was out of the question.

"He went that way," came a different voice.

Rhodes looked over — and wound up wobbling off-balance. Barnes caught him by the shoulder with his metal hand.

That was weird.

But not the point. The voice had come from a young Asgardian woman, who was standing in a cluster of young Asgardians, all of them looking at the group with obvious worry. The speaker still had her finger extended southeast, away from the picnic. That was a relief, at least.

"Thank you," Thor said to her. "We'll make sure that he doesn't return."

The four of them spread out. Odds were that the hybrid genuinely was on the run, but it would still be pretty damned stupid to let him double back. Barnes quickly picked up some tracks and took the lead.

They left the construction zone and found themselves at the southern plains. But the hybrid was nowhere to be seen. The only thing in view was Loki's escape pod.

And — by pure coincidence, of course — Loki was just stepping out of it.

"Loki!" Thor jogged ahead to meet him. "Did you see where the bomber went?"

"The — what? He was _here_?"

"Yeah, he was here!" Valkyrie snapped. "We just had an entire fistfight with explosions and a building getting knocked down. You didn't notice?"

"No, I didn't hear anything," Loki said, and gestured vaguely toward the escape pod. "I was… reading."

"Reading. Sure."

"Why was he still here? What could he possibly want?"

Valkyrie scoffed. "A guaranteed escape route, maybe."

"Oh, of _course_ you blame me for your own incompetence," Loki snarled back.

"You don't—"

"Enough," Thor said tiredly. "The man is gone. We're safe for the moment. We'll deal with him when and if he returns."

* * *

They played several rounds of Clint and Natasha's game, up until Steve stuffed five rice cakes in his mouth and asked Sam if he had any nines. He won, but it would be more accurate to say that all of them lost. Tony peremptorily called a halt.

After that, though, something seemed to relax. They sprawled around the living room and started just… hanging out. Tony had to admit that the human race had been amusing itself for centuries before radio, TV and the internet had come along. It could be done.

For the first time since they'd woken up on the Moon, time seemed to pass at something like the normal rate. They kicked around and chatted and ate their stupid little rice cakes, and basically passed a decent couple of hours.

It was quite a bit later when Tony floated down to the other end of the hall to use the facilities and get a refill on his water. After step one was complete, he emerged into the kitchen and found that Wanda had beaten him to step two.

"Hey, Tony," she said, and did the silly miming gesture that caused a glass of water to materialize.

"Wanda." Tony picked a different trigger point and got his own drink. (Of water. The only thing to drink was water. At least the last alien prison had had coffee. Though the fact that Tony didn't have a crippling headache suggested that he was getting caffeine somehow — possibly from the food.)

"It was a nice day today," Wanda said, "as days in extraterrestrial prisons go."

"On that very specific scale, yes." Tony cleared his throat. "Uh, since you're here, I've been meaning to ask: I assume, if you were able to… send a distress signal or something, you would have already tried it. Right?"

"I did think of that," said Wanda. "I thought, because of the Mind Stone, maybe Vision would…" She glanced down the hallway, toward the sitting room and its view of home. "I've been trying since we got here. And there was actually a second when… but whatever it was, I couldn't control it enough to send a message. It's just too far."

Tony nodded. It was no more than he'd figured.

"Sorry," she added.

"No, don't…" He waved his hand dismissively. "It's not like any of us could do better."

There was a deeply awkward pause.

Then Tony said, "I know I'm going to regret asking this, but what were your two truths and one lie that broke the game?"

The corners of her mouth turned up slightly. "The Brenithi will score a victory even greater than they imagined, one of us will make a life-or-death decision and it will be wrong, and everyone will get to go home."

_And I have no one to blame for this but myself._

"Uh-huh," Tony said. "For future reference, you might want to make it a little harder to tell which one the lie is."

"You're telling me this after your three were—"

"Hey, I was deliberately subverting the expectations of the game. Completely different."

"Ah."

"And these insider tidbits of yours." Tony gestured vaguely at his own temple, as if it made sense to ascribe creepy prescient abilities to a particular region of the brain. "Are we calling them hunches, suspicions, what?"

"I don't know," said Wanda. "I just know that I'm right."

Again — no more than he'd figured. "Most of the time, I can handwave my way through the physics," Tony said. "Even Thor. You want to channel the power of lightning through your magic hammer? Sure. Sufficiently advanced materials science is indistinguishable from mythology. But you… I gotta say you freak me out."

"I freak myself out sometimes," she replied. "It's the Mind Stone. All the Stones, really. The rules go around them. They came before the rules."

"Not helping."

"No." She looked down at her water glass. "I've done terrible things with these powers. I try to move on, but I never forget it."

Weird segue. Tony frowned as he waited for the point to appear.

"You think it was a mistake to trust Kel," Wanda said. "Given where we're standing, I can't exactly argue. I just hope you know that it isn't a mistake to trust the rest of us."

_Oh_. "Is this more insider information?"

"Sort of. Or maybe just a hunch. But I think it's going to take all of us to take our planet back."


	13. Chapter 13

_God_, Rhodes needed to get off his feet.

He hated leaving Thor and Valkyrie shorthanded, especially since they seemed to be trying to patrol the perimeter of the settlement entirely on their own. (_You're going to need a civilian security force sooner or later, folks._) However, in his present condition, he wasn't exactly contributing much to the personnel issue. The only thing he had enough energy left to do was head back to his suite and see if Tony had left a message yet.

In fact, the braces were getting sufficiently whiny that he didn't dare wait until after dinner. Once Thor returned from sending an update to T'Challa, Rhodes took his leave and headed back towards the capital.

He successfully maneuvered his way past the gate and started back up the path. Five paces later, he realized that his weren't the only footsteps he was hearing.

Rhodes stopped and looked over his shoulder, and discovered that he'd picked up a long-haired pasty shadow.

"Are you _walking me home_?" Rhodes asked.

Barnes' only response was a slight shrug.

"Look, you don't need to bother. I'm _fine_. It's—"

Except of _course_ that was when one of the knee joints made a little whining sound and locked up. Barnes somehow covered the space between them in the blink of an eye and caught Rhodes by the elbow as he stumbled, using the flesh hand this time. He released him again the moment the braces righted themselves.

Rhodes had some feedback for Tony concerning combat mode, that was for damn sure.

"All right," he said once he had his balance back, "but just so we're clear: if these things give out entirely, I'm not— don't even think about— I will _crawl_ back before I let you carry me. Understood?"

Barnes accepted that with another of his miniscule shrugs. "Okay."

"Good."

(It was possible that he was being a little stupid about this, but Rhodes was too tired to care.)

Luckily they made it to the shield without any more mishaps. Rhodes extended his wrist, and one of the beads on his bracelet flashed a Wakandan character. In response, a door-shaped gap appeared in the shield. He and Barnes filed in.

On the other side of the shield, the view changed dramatically: the space that from the outside had appeared to contain nothing but trees and rocky outcroppings was suddenly filled with the cheerful lights and graceful towers of Birnin Zana. Rhodes stepped from the simple dirt path to a much smoother paved road, and felt the corresponding marginal reduction in the stress on his braces.

Soon he and Barnes were within the city limits, on the outskirts of an open-air marketplace. A family just in front of them was buying their dinner from a vendor. As they passed, the younger boy turned and gave Barnes a vigorous wave, and chirped something in Wakandan.

"Hey, kid," Barnes replied. To Rhodes, he said, "This way," and gestured to the right.

"The residence is straight ahead."

"Yeah. But unless you really want to try that crawling thing…"

Curious in spite of himself, Rhodes let Barnes lead him half a block off-course to what looked like a storage bin, about hip-high and twice as long, sitting on the edge of the sidewalk. Barnes tapped it with his own Wakandan bead bracelet. The panel along the side slid open and out popped…

Oh, for…

It was a wheelchair. Or it would have been, if it had had any wheels. All things considered, Rhodes probably had to call it a _hover_ chair.

"They're free for public use," Barnes said. "You can keep it overnight if you want."

A hovering wheelchair.

Yeah, all right.

Rhodes cautiously leaned his weight on the arms of the chair. There was the slightest amount of give in… well, in whatever force was making the thing hover, but not enough to make him think that it was going to dump him on the ground. Practical jokes didn't seem like either Wakanda's style or Barnes', so…

He took a seat. It was a very comfortable seat. The controls on the armrest were straightforward, and the ride was smooth.

"And yet," he said after a minute, "you're still following me."

"Good evening, Sergeant Barnes!" another Wakandan kid said in English as she passed them on the sidewalk.

"You're gonna tell the Avengers about the attack, right?" Barnes said. "Makes sense for both of us to do it."

_Oh, Tony's gonna love that_.

"Fine."

A woman stepped out of the shop just ahead of them. "Sergeant Barnes," she said, and gave him a solemn nod.

"Okay, do you know everyone in the city?" Rhodes asked him.

"Not everyone."

The residence where Rhodes had his suite was attached to the palace, and that meant more automated security. He and Barnes both gained admission by tapping their bracelets to the plate next to the door. Inside, the Dora Milaje member on duty looked them both over impassively.

_Finally, someone who doesn't—_

"Hello, Onje," Barnes said.

"Sergeant Barnes," she replied.

_Goddammit._

They made it from the lobby to the elevator without running into any more members of the Friends of Sergeant Barnes club. Shortly thereafter, Rhodes was back in his suite, and Barnes was with him.

Still weird.

Rhodes piloted the chair across the room to the desk, where he'd left his phone. (Fun Wakandan fact: cell service compatible with non-Wakandan phones was only available in the capital city. That was the sort of thing that happened when a country developed its communications infrastructure independent of the rest of the world.) As soon as he switched the phone on, it buzzed with a waiting message, which turned out to be from Tony.

_We have a lead on the rest of the hybrids. We have to move fast. Could be out of contact for a few days._

The time stamp was from just a few minutes ago. Rhodes responded:

_Do you need backup?_

_No, we've got it under control. How is Wakanda?_

It was a bit annoying to do this by text, but Tony must have had his reasons. Rhodes gave a quick sketch of the day's excitement, and concluded:

_Now that T'Challa knows this guy is here, I'm betting he'll have security forces combing the countryside. There's nothing else any of us can do._

_All right. I'll be in touch when I have news._

_Good hunting._

That settled that. In theory, anyway.

Rhodes handed the phone over to Barnes. "Here. What do you think?"

Barnes scrolled through the exchange, then handed the phone back. "You know Stark. I don't. Does it sound right?"

"More or less. It's a little weird that he didn't just call me." Rhodes sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Maybe I'm letting Loki get in my head. But this claim of his that Kel was planted inside the Avengers… I don't know if it's sabotage, espionage or _what_, but I can't shake the feeling that I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop."

"I never met her," Barnes said. "Just what Steve told me."

"She and I didn't exactly hit it off," said Rhodes. "Her people's idea of warfare looks a lot like my idea of genocide. I'm worried that if she does have an ulterior motive, Tony won't let himself see it until it's too late."

"Is she strong enough to take the team down?"

"The whole team at once? No. Not a chance, not in a fair fight."

"So the fight won't be fair," Barnes said.

"You know, you're really not helping me."

Rhodes piloted the chair back towards the bed, picking up the television remote along the way. Weirdly, it also seemed to have a message waiting for him. He tapped the blinking light, and the display switched on.

A message in English told him that he was about to watch a replay of a news report from earlier in the day. Then the screen switched to a broadcast from the United Nations headquarters in Vienna. The Wakandan UN representative was addressing the assembly.

"Wakanda categorically denies any involvement in the theft or misuse of Brenith genetic material," he said. "The criminal in custody is not a Wakandan citizen: his credentials are a forgery. The Wakandan government had no knowledge of this man's actions, or those of his co-conspirators.

"Lies must be dispelled with facts. So that there can be no doubt of our innocence, we are prepared to cooperate fully with the proposed United Nations observers and inspection teams. It is the hope and the expectation of our government that Wakanda will be swiftly exonerated, and the true culprits uncovered."

The broadcast switched to a pair of news anchors who were clearly about to offer some commentary. Rhodes found the volume control and dialed it down.

"What do you figure the odds are that those inspection teams will come here and find nothing, and everyone will be totally satisfied?" he asked.

Barnes managed to look even more dour than usual.

"Yeah. I didn't think so, either."

* * *

Pepper might not have seen the Brenith empathic sense in action for herself, but she'd read every report that had come out of the portal incident, and of course she'd talked about it extensively with Tony. If hybrids were keeping tabs on her — and she had to assume that they were — then in order to convince them that she'd left the country, she had to leave the country.

Or at the very least, the plane had to take off.

The SI jet departed Van Nuys at 3pm, bound for Tokyo. Pepper was on it, along with a collection of executives and technicians, all of whom were being compensated very well for the last-minute travel.

It was an unfortunate black mark on their safety record when they had to descend again before they'd even reached cruising altitude. Officially, their emergency landing at Camarillo was due to maintenance issues. The brief flight gave Pepper just enough time to change clothes and give her employees a cover story. She slipped off quietly as soon as they landed, and Happy was waiting to pick her up.

He was dressed casually, the same as she was. Their hope was that no one would be expecting Pepper Potts to show up at a two-star motel in the middle of nowhere, and they could simply pass for a random couple on a road trip.

Happy, who had spent the day mapping out their next moves, drove for almost two hours before he reached their destination. The two of them checked in under a pseudonym, and Happy paid cash. The desk clerk seemed quite bored by these events.

Once they had their keys, they drove around to the back of the complex and climbed the exterior stairs to their second-floor room. Happy opened the door.

Anna was sitting on one of the beds.

"Hey!" Happy snapped. "This isn't your room, lady! What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Pepper quickly stepped out between them. "It's okay, Happy," she said. "This is Anna. Anna, this is Happy Hogan, my head of security."

Happy pulled up short. "This— this is _Anna_? _This_ is Anna?"

"What are you doing here?" Pepper asked her.

"Keeping my word," she said. "You haven't been caught. I'm getting in touch."

"How did you find us?"

"Fortunately, I'm a better hunter than the people who are hunting you," she said, and jerked her head in Happy's direction. "I followed him."

"No," Happy said. "Uh-uh. No one followed me. No one _follows_ me."

Anna's roll of her eyes was delicate but unmistakable. "I was watching when you arrived at the house," she said to Happy. "Now that I know who you are, I can pick you out of a crowd from half a mile away. Sparsely populated highways are considerably easier. You're lucky that none of my former colleagues had the same idea."

"Speaking of the other hybrids," Pepper said, "how long do we have until they realize that you've broken ranks? Or are they searching for you already?"

"I don't have a specific assignment at the moment," Anna replied. "When we're not on a mission, we're given considerable autonomy. As long as one of the Gen Ones doesn't make a surprise visit, I should be able to operate under the radar until we go up against the hybrids who are escorting the shipment."

"What's a Gen One?" Happy asked.

"Generation One," Anna said. "The first five successful hybrids. The Brenithi practiced their procedure on a lot of bodies before it worked. Once it was working, they chose their first champions very carefully. The Gen Ones are afforded the highest levels of trust and access. The rest of us get our orders from them." Her smile was sardonic. "j'Brenithi love their hierarchies. They stand above us, we stand above you. Are there any other questions, or can we get down to business?"

"Yeah, I got another question for you, Anna," Happy said. "Why should we believe one word that comes out of your mouth?"

Anna leaned back on her hands and crossed her ankles. "Tell me, Mr. Hogan, because I'm terribly curious: did Ms. Potts tell you why she isn't going to the authorities?"

"She didn't have to tell me. I already knew."

"Interesting. And what firepower, if any, do you bring to the table? Or is your presence more of a… symbolic one?"

"This is not the conversation that we are having," Pepper interjected sharply. "If you really want to help, then tell us everything you know about what happened to the Avengers."

Thankfully, Anna refocused on Pepper. "Are you aware of their last mission in the desert?" she asked.

"To retrieve some kind of power sources," said Pepper. "Yes, Tony told me."

"That mission was an ambush. The Brenithi wanted the Tesseract cores for themselves; once they had them, the Avengers had outlived their usefulness and the half-human took them down. They've been in storage ever since, awaiting transport. In three days, they'll be moved to LAX and loaded into an official diplomatic shipment to the j'Brenn Fracture. Like I already told you, that's where we have to hit them: at the airport, before they get shipped out."

"Just so I have this right," Happy said, "your plan is to _hit_ LAX. One of the largest airports in the world. Where they've got security systems, cameras, cops, and an army's worth of people whose job it is to respond to attacks. How exactly are the three of us supposed to get through all of that?"

"_You_ likely can't," Anna replied. "But do attempt to remember that your boss can punch through any wall, melt down any lock, shake off any small arms fire — need I go on? We do this by _doing_ it."

"What you're proposing is an act of domestic terrorism!" Happy snapped. "How does all of us going to prison for a hundred years help anything?"

"Uncover the Avengers in Brenith custody, and all will be forgiven."

"That's a long shot, even _if_ you're telling the truth." He turned back to Pepper. "Look, I know you're worried about Tony and you want him back, but _please_ don't let her talk you into this!"

Both pairs of eyes were drilling into her. Pepper took a careful breath, and said, "Happy's right. There's no way that we can do this at LAX. Which means we need to rescue the Avengers before they reach the airport. Anna, you said that you know where they're being held. Tell us about it."

Anna's mouth twisted in irritation, but she replied, "It's the same place where they were captured — the abandoned SHIELD base where the Tesseract cores were hidden. Where Loki first arrived on Earth. We liked it, so we took it for ourselves. But that is absolutely the _worst_ place for a strike. It's isolated, and some of us are guarding it. With your distinctive sense, they will literally see you coming a mile away."

"We'll just have to move fast enough that it won't make a difference," Pepper said.

"Transit," said Happy. "They can work out ways to defend the piece of ground they're standing on, but things always get more fluid when you're moving." He turned back to Anna. "Assuming anything you're telling us is true — which I don't, by the way — how are the prisoners being moved?"

"By truck," she said. "If you want to target them in transit, the timeline moves up considerably: they'll leave the base at least ten hours before the flight. And there's another problem. All that airport security you're so worried about? It would have hampered them just as much as it would have us. The hybrids can't show themselves publicly when they're working for the Brenithi — that would spoil the surprise. But if you pick a fight on some empty piece of highway, all bets are off."

"I suppose we'll deal with that by dealing with it," said Pepper. "Do you know where to find this place?"

"In the Mojave desert," Anna said. "Not on any map."

"But you've been there."

"I've been there."

"Will you tell us?"

"No," she said, and Pepper could see the amusement glinting in her eyes as she watched Happy swell in indignation. "But I can take you there."

"Lady, if you keep jerking us around—"

"What would you do with the coordinates if you had them?" Anna asked. "Attempt to run your own op and get yourself killed?"

"No one is in a position to run any kind of operation yet," Pepper said firmly before Happy could retort. To Anna, she said, "I assume you have transportation?"

"I have a car," Anna said. "It's stolen. Are you squeamish?"

She ignored that. "Then you and I will go to the desert and start planning the rescue. Happy, I need you to work on the other matter that we discussed."

He frowned at her. "Me."

"Yes."

"Alone."

"Yes."

"You want me to go off and…"

"Yes."

"And leave you with _her_?"

"I'll be fine, Happy."

"And if she isn't," Anna added, "you couldn't possibly do anything about it."

"If _anything_ happens to her while I'm gone—"

"That's enough," Pepper said quickly. "We have two days. Happy, check in with me as soon as you have any news. Anna, I'm ready to leave whenever you are."

* * *

Peter was having a really difficult day.

It was a little bit creepy how quickly Peter — the other Peter — had produced, like, documentation? Of a Susannah Reilly in Charlotte, NC, who had died the day before at the age of eighty-six, whose obituary mentioned a daughter May and an adopted grandson Peter. Besides the obituary — which looked completely real and was posted in a real newspaper — Peter sent them an announcement for the wake, and a scanned copy of the death certificate.

So that, at least, was their cover story taken care of: _obviously_ Peter and May had to travel to North Carolina to be with the rest of the family. Peter's high school bought it, and May's job bought it.

(Peter wasn't sure if he should tell Ned the fake story, or the real story — okay, probably not the real story — or something in between. He ended up not contacting him at all. Maybe the other Peter would have some advice.)

The other Peter also somehow arranged flights for them to Charlotte for that morning, just in case anyone asked them for proof of travel later, then more flights from there to Sacramento later in the day. He paid for it all, which was definitely a relief but also kind of left Peter with an envelope of stolen money that he had no idea what to do with.

May was… you know. Not doing great. Pretty freaked out. She was coming with him — Peter had tried to suggest that maybe she didn't have to come with him, but that had gone _really_ badly — and now she was doing everything with this rigid smile on her face that she only got when she was absolutely furious.

They couldn't exactly talk about stuff while they were out in public. But that didn't stop May from, like… making remarks.

"It was a last-minute arrangement," she said tightly to the TSA guy, who probably didn't actually care that much. "Family emergency. Very unexpected. I'm not entirely sure when we'll be back. Frankly, I'm not entirely sure where we're going."

Peter would have really liked for her to be a little less conspicuous, given that the stolen money was at the bottom of his carry-on and he wasn't even sure if that was legal. (Or — the fact that it was stolen was _definitely_ illegal, obviously. It was the 'envelope full of cash on a plane' part he was less sure of.)

They got past security somehow, and made it through their first flight. In the Charlotte airport, while they were getting lunch, May repeated her 'family emergency' story to the family in line in front of them, and to the lady behind the counter, _and_ to the people at the next table over.

Peter was trying to figure out how to get her to stop, and also trying to figure out whether he was supposed to be watching for people tailing them or something. (Probably he should have been focused on the second one, but mostly he was focused on the first one.) So far, he hadn't seen anyone suspicious. Whatever that meant.

(Maybe it meant that the bad guys would be waiting for them in Sacramento, because this whole thing was a trap.)

He didn't know. He _really_ didn't know. The only thing he could do was… keep going. Whatever was actually going on — with Kel and the Avengers and the Brenithi, all of it — he knew it was too big for him to handle by himself. He needed help.

Anyway. They had to make a connection in Dallas before they got to Sacramento, and it was really late by the time they finally landed. Peter picked up his checked bag — because you could put an envelope full of cash in your carry-on luggage, but you _really_ couldn't do that with the Spider-Man suit — then he and May met the other Peter outside the Arrivals hall.

"Hey, you guys!" Peter said. "I'm so sorry for the long trip. You must be exhausted. You _look_ exhausted. It's a bit of a drive to the house, but don't even worry about dozing off in the car or whatever. I'll wake you when we get there."

"And what house is this, exactly?" May asked. "Yours?"

"Sort of," said Peter. "Tony Stark bought it for us, actually. He put a bunch of countersurveillance stuff on it back then, and other people have set up more security measures since. You'll be safe there, I promise."

Peter had never been to California before. (Or to Texas or North Carolina for that matter.) He felt like he should be taking more of it in… but it had been a long and extremely stressful day… and he leaned his head back…

And suddenly the car was pulling into a driveway.

He jolted awake and scrubbed at his eyes, and took a belated look around. They were parked in front of a one-story house with white siding, a front porch, and a literal white picket fence around the front yard. The other houses on the street looked about the same: one or two stories, not huge but nice and neat. At that hour, the streetlights were on and the houses were mostly dark.

Peter got out of the car and grabbed his suitcase from the trunk, then followed Peter and May to the front door.

On the doorstep, the other Peter paused.

"So here's the thing," he said. "People tell me things that they tell me not to tell anyone else. It happens a lot, actually. And I'm discreet! I'm the most discreet guy you'll ever meet — ask anyone — but when more than one person tells me the _same_ secret thing that I'm not supposed to tell anyone else… sometimes I have to make a judgment call. So don't freak out, okay?"

He opened the door. Standing in the front hallway was Happy.

Peter's mouth fell open. "What are you doing here?"

"What are _you_ doing here?" Happy retorted.

"What are you _doing_ here?"

"What are you doing _here_?"

"Enough!" May snapped. "Please, just… enough."

"Oh!" Happy's entire expression brightened. "Hello, May. What a lovely— I mean, I didn't expect to see you again so soon."

The other Peter shut the door behind them, and they all shuffled down the hall and into the living room. It was brightly lit with lamps, and the furniture was all bold, cheerful colors. It wasn't really stuff that Peter would have expected Mr. Stark to buy, but maybe he'd asked Peter and Aaron to pick.

Happy, still talking to May, asked, "What, ah, brings you to Sacramento?"

"Sixteen hours and three airplanes," she said as she sank into the furthest chair. "Not to mention a deranged woman who broke into our apartment."

"A— wait. Tall, blonde, gorgeous in an 'I've killed men for less' sort of way?"

"What? No! Who are you talking about?"

"Who are _you_ talking about?"

"Who are _you_—"

"I think," the other Peter said, "that maybe what we should do is sit down and explain, in detail, from the beginning, exactly what we're all talking about. That way we'll all know."

And that did sound like the right idea, but…

"I told you what she said to me," Peter said. "If I tell more people…"

"Peter, I promise you, everything that's happening right now is part of the same problem," the other Peter said. "If we're going to fix it, then we need to see the whole story. All of us. Trust me, okay?"

_If you tell anyone else I was here, they will all die_.

"How about I go first, kid, all right?" said Happy. "Then you'll know if we're dealing with the same thing or not."

So Peter listened as Happy explained everything that had been happening to him and Ms. Potts that day. Everything — maybe — that had been happening to the Avengers.

When it was over, he knew that Peter was right. Everything that was happening was part of the same problem. So he did the only thing he could do. He told them about Kel.

"She's got some kind of personal force field or something," he said at the end. "It knocked me across the room. Then she left."

"That's it?" Happy said. "She didn't tell you anything else?"

"Um." He looked down at his hands. He hated this part. "Before she disappeared, she said, 'The next time you see me, fight back with everything you have.'" He glanced at the other Peter. "I'm sorry."

"So now Kel and Anna are both working with the Brenithi, and they both claim to be going behind their backs," Happy said. "One traitor was hard enough to swallow. I'm not buying both. At least one of them is a liar."

"Well, all Kel did was give me money and send me here," Peter said.

"While Anna tried to send us to attack LAX, where we would get extremely killed."

"Did she?" May asked. "Or did she just suggest it, knowing that you would never go through with it?"

Happy blinked at her. "Huh. I didn't think of that. That's very devious of you."

"Thank you."

"So I guess there's a way to look at it where this Anna lady also sent you here," the other Peter said. "Or, at least, she sent you to whoever you would go to for help if the Avengers are gone."

"Then maybe neither of them is a traitor," said May. "They're just using the two of you to track down your contacts."

Peter said, "But if it's true that Anna really does know where the Avengers are, and she really does want to get them out…"

"Yeah, I know," said Happy. "The only problem is, she says they're at an abandoned top secret SHIELD facility out in the Mojave desert — the one where that whole Loki business six years ago got started — and she's not telling us where it is."

"Oh, I know where that place is," the other Peter said.

Happy turned to him sharply. "What?"

Peter gave him an innocent blink. "What?"

"No one knows where that place is! That's what 'top secret' means!"

"Yes, okay, fair point," said Peter, "but the thing is, Jean has sort of a personal connection to the Loki incident, and this one time she asked me if I could find it, and… well, it turned out I could." He shrugged. "So yeah. I thought about putting it on Google Maps, just to see what would happen next. But then I figured that what would happen next would be pretty bad, so. I've got the GPS coordinates — I'll just text those around to everyone."

"All right," Happy said. "Then I guess we do know where it is. One way we could figure out what the hell's going on here is if we could find out if the Avengers are actually there or not. But if these… hybrid empathic whatevers are guarding it, then they'll know if we try to scout the place."

"Yeah, I've been thinking about that," said the other Peter. "If we could get to within a couple miles, then we might be able to get a drone in close enough to at least scan for heat signatures. But if it comes up empty, all Anna has to say is that the Avengers are being held in some kind of, like, suspended animation for transport. Which might even be true. We really do need to get someone inside who can look around without being noticed."

Peter wasn't sure how that could be possible. Kel was the one who'd taught him how to hunt and track. He knew just how good she was at it, and part of it was because she knew exactly where all the living bodies were around her: humans, the giant monsters on Venen-ka, and even animals as small as…

_Oh. Huh._

"Hey, Peter," he said, "when you were at Captain America's party, did you meet Ant-Man?"

Peter grinned and pulled out his phone. "Peter, I am way ahead of you."

He tapped out a text. A few seconds later, the front door opened.

"Hey, guys!" Scott Lang said as he walked in. "Great to see everyone again! Though maybe not under these circumstances. Whatever these circumstances are, which I don't actually know yet."

Behind him came another person who had been at the party — one of Peter and Aaron's friends. Peter screwed up his face as he tried to remember… _Kiran_, that was it.

Kiran said, "I can't believe you made us sit in the car for twenty minutes so you could have your dramatic reveal."

The other Peter said, "It was fun and you know it. How was the trip?"

"Not too bad," said Scott.

"Sure," Kiran added. "I love last-minute flights and cross-country driving after midnight. Airports are so very calming."

"So," Scott said, "what's up?"

Of course that meant they had to tell the whole story _again_, including the new piece about the SHIELD base.

"Huh," Scott said when they were done. "So we're doing a heist in the desert. Desert heist. I've never tried that before."

"More like we need to figure out if there's anything _to_ heist," said Happy. "If there isn't, then this whole thing is a trap, and we forget the base and rescue Pepper from Anna."

"If there isn't," Kiran said, "then you have no idea where the Avengers are really being held."

"Kel knows," said Peter.

"Anna does, too," said Happy.

"I suppose that will fall to me," Kiran sighed. "Though this sort of thing isn't my specialty."

May asked, "What sort of thing?"

Kiran's fingers twitched, and a little shower of blue sparks flew off of them. "Pulling information out of minds. I'm not a telepath in the classic sense, but I can lower inhibitions and twist perceptions."

"Okay, but that's the second step," said the other Peter, as May gaped at Kiran. "We won't know what we need to do until after we finish the first step, which is searching this base for captured Avengers."

"And the rest of you are going to have to take care of that on your own," Happy said. "I need to get back to Pepper. Scott, if Anna sticks to the schedule she's claiming, that gives you a day and a half to do whatever it is you're going to do."

"There are dozens of ant species in the desert," Scott said. "I figure I'll infiltrate a colony of—"

"Yeah, I don't actually care what you're going to do, I just need you to do it and report back. Is Anna's intel legitimate or not? Everything depends on that."

"And if the Avengers _are_ there," said Peter, "maybe we can rescue them ourselves."

May sat up sharply. "Hold on a second. There is no 'we' that includes _you_ that's going anywhere near that place!"

"May, come on, I have to! Mr. Stark needs my help!"

"Either Kel is trying to lead you into a trap, or she's trying to keep you away from danger. Either way, you're not getting involved in this mess any further!"

"What if she sent me here because I'm the only one left with a chance to help them?"

May shook her head rapidly. "No, I can't, I just—" And she stood up and rushed out of the room.

Peter got the same sick feeling in his stomach every time he and May had this fight, and they'd had it a lot. She'd finally gotten used to the idea that he could fight ordinary human crime around the neighborhood, because there was nothing that an ordinary human could do to hurt him. It was the extra stuff — the superhero stuff — where she still got upset. And he didn't know any more ways to explain that he _had_ to do these things, even if they got dangerous, because his friends were counting on him.

The other Peter stood up and beckoned to him. "It's okay," he said softly. "Come on."

Peter followed him back out into the hallway. May was standing by the front door with her back to them. Her breathing was ragged.

He knew how to do a lot of things. He'd helped win a war. But he didn't know how to fix this.

The other Peter stopped a few paces away from May, and turned sideways so he was talking to both of them.

"Obviously you remember the thing with the portals," he said. "But do you remember how it started, before the Avengers got involved? At first, it was just Jean and a bunch of us, working by ourselves. And Jean dressed up the plan in a lot more words than this, but fundamentally, her idea was that she was going to _live_ there, in an alien labor camp in an alien universe, for two and a half years. It would only last three days for me, but for her it was going to be thirty months. And she was planning to take my husband with her."

May stirred a little.

"It was hard for them in ways that I'll never really understand. I know that. But the part that _they_ won't ever really understand is all the ways I died over those three days. Imagining everything that could go wrong. Whenever I thought I'd catalogued all the ways I could lose him, another one would come up and I would die all over again. And there was nothing I could do about it except wait and see. He would either come home through the last portal or he wouldn't.

"I can't tell you how to cope with it," he said. "Because I coped with it through extreme sleep deprivation and sending every Avenger I could find after them, and certain aspects of that were ill-advised, as you and I recently discussed. But one thing I tried to hold onto is that Jean would do just about _anything_ to protect her friends. She can't control the universe, but the only way she would let anything happen to Aaron is if it happened to her first about fifty times over. And, honestly? After being around her for this long, I'm kind of the same way. And so's Kiran, even if they're a little more sarcastic about it. And so are the Avengers, and so is your nephew."

It took some time, but eventually May turned to face them again.

"You're a very smooth talker, you know that?" she said to Peter.

"Yes, ma'am," he said. "It's pretty easy when I only say things that are true."

She sighed. "I know I can't… I can't stop you from going. If I say no, you'll just go anyway." For the first time since she'd left the other room, she looked at Peter. "But _please_, at least promise me that you won't go rushing off on your own. You'll stay with the group, where you can all watch out for each other. Can you do that?"

"Yeah," Peter said quickly. "I promise. Are… are you okay?"

May smiled sadly. "No, I'm not," she said. "But I guess that's the price to pay for saving the world."

* * *

The second day on the Moon, much like the first day, was both socially and gravitationally vexing, but ultimately uneventful. Natasha guessed that they had another two days, three at the most, before some serious cabin fever set in and they started picking fights with each other.

With no clocks and no sun, the passage of time was a matter of consensus. (Steve had backed off a little from the notion of structure after the previous day's antics.) The pattern that seemed to be emerging was not a clearly delineated day and night so much as alternating blocks of social hours and quiet hours. They were in a quiet phase at the moment: a few people were napping, while others were sharing a meal in the kitchen.

It was as good a moment for a private conversation as she was going to get. Natasha drifted her way to Tony's doorway, and he looked up at her knock.

"The other day," she said, "or however we're measuring days, I took a cheap shot at you and Kel. It was below the belt. I'm sorry."

"I hit, you hit back," Tony replied with a shrug. "Call it even."

"I guess I was surprised that you're still so angry with me."

He groaned. "Okay, just this once, could we please not, you know, _delve_? I'm not… it's fine, I was just as much out of line, so let's forget it."

_Okay. One day, two at the most._

Natasha made her way back to her own room — and found Clint sitting on her bed.

"What are you doing?"

"Waiting," he said.

Ah. So they _were_ going to do this. "You could be waiting a long time."

"That's all right. I'm not busy."

Natasha sat down beside him, and they both dropped their voices to low whispers.

"I'd been wondering if anyone noticed," she said.

"I noticed," Clint responded. "Looks like no one else did. I haven't been talking about it because _you_ haven't been talking about it, and because it doesn't matter much while we're stuck up here. But sooner or later, folks are gonna have to know. The woman in the desert. You knew her."

Natasha gave a slow nod. "I knew her."

"She got a name?"

"Back then, it was Anna. Though of course she might not use it anymore. We go through them so quickly."

She could sense Clint framing his next question carefully. But before he could ask it, there came a strange _whoosh_ from the front room.

Nothing in their prison made that noise.

A moment later, a voice came:

"For pity's sake, who doesn't install gravity plates? Brenith barbarians."

Natasha's eyes widened in shock. Next to her, Clint's whole body tensed. She knew that voice. They both did.

They propelled themselves out of Natasha's room and into the hallway, where they ran into the rest of the group doing the exact same thing. Clumsily, bouncing off the walls and each other, all seven of them rushed to the front room to meet the intruder.

He was standing with his hands draped behind his back and a smug expression on his face. He looked exactly the same as he had six years ago.

Loki.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for an explicit discussion of contemplated suicide.

Loki stood in front of the window, the half-shadowed Earth hanging in the sky behind him. He was wearing the same outfit of black, green and gold that Natasha remembered from the New York invasion. He was also wearing the smug expression of a guy who held all the cards.

Natasha hoped that he was wrong about that. But at the moment, she wasn't seeing precisely how.

"It's been too long," Loki said, and smiled congenially. His gaze traveled across the crowd, and paused exactly where Natasha didn't want it to go. "Agent Barton. I have missed our little talks."

Clint's expression was blank, but Natasha could feel the rage held tight between his shoulders. "Wanda, can you reduce this guy to creamed spinach without scuffing up the walls?" he asked.

"I can try," Wanda replied.

"Ah yes, I saw this on television," Loki said, and shifted his attention to Wanda. "You're one of the new ones. And let me see…" He surveyed the crowd again, pausing on Sam and Jean in turn. "You're new, and you're new. The witch, the flyer, and…" He made a show of turning to Jean and furrowing his brow in puzzlement. "What is it that you do again?"

Hoarsely, she replied, "Exercise restraint."

Steve clearly wanted to take an authoritative step forward. However, there was no stepping on the Moon, and even Steve couldn't authoritatively hop. So he settled for folding his arms.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Surely you're heard?" Loki replied. "The Earth is my home now. I've been meaning to visit your satellite for some time." Redundantly, he took another look at his surroundings, and this time he wrinkled his nose. "You haven't exactly done much with it, have you?"

"Okay, let's be a little more specific," Tony said. "How did you get in here?"

"Please. I'm a god. My abilities are far beyond your comprehension."

"Yeah, that's great. Are you working with the Brenithi? Is this your invasion plan two point oh?"

"Hardly," Loki sniffed. "Once again, you are the ones who brought the instrument of your own downfall into your midst. j'Brenithi are known for their conquests, and not their imagination. Their plan was obvious from the beginning, or so I would have thought." He gave an aristocratic little sigh. "I suppose that's what I get for overestimating mortals. Not only have you fallen into their trap, your remaining friends haven't even noticed that you've gone missing. Which speaks to the quality of the Brenith cover story, or perhaps the caliber of your friends — I haven't decided."

"Whereas you've got the whole thing figured out," Tony said. "Congratulations. Which brings us back to: what the hell are you doing here?"

"I suspected that the sight of Earth's mightiest heroes trapped in a cage would entertain me," Loki said. "And I was right."

"Yeah, I'm bored," Clint said. "Wanda — disintegration, any time now."

Beneath her breath, Jean moaned, "Oh _God_."

Steve said sharply, "We are _not_ getting into a fight. Not here. Clint, Wanda, _stand down_."

In the most diffident tones she could summon, Natasha said, "I think this room might be a little over-crowded."

Clint snapped, "If you think I'm gonna just—"

"Yeah, Nat, I think you're right," Sam said, and reached out to tug gently on Clint's arm. "Come on, man. Someone else can do this."

It wasn't Sam Clint turned to lock eyes with, it was Natasha. In the space of a few seconds, they covered a few rounds of _I know_ and _I know that you know_ and _It's okay, I've got this_ and _If you happen to get a chance to stab him in the eyeball_… Then Clint nodded tightly and and gave way.

Next to them, Jean and Tony were also engaged in some silent communication. The outcome: Jean left, and Tony stayed. Steve also remained standing in place, and Wanda joined the exodus.

Loki watched blandly while this reshuffle occurred.

There was nothing to be done about the hopping. Natasha floated her way to the couch and took a seat, then leaned back and folded her hands in her lap. The more agitated they appeared, the more Loki was going to amuse himself at their expense. The key to getting something useful out of this was to lower the stakes.

Steve, unfortunately, was not picking up on her cues. If anything, his posture became more rigid. "Are you actually here," he asked Loki, "or is this just one of your illusions?"

"Would you believe me if I told you?"

"No, he's here," said Natasha. "Illusions don't displace the air."

"All right," Steve said. "You have our attention. This was a long way to travel, and somehow I don't think you're here just to gloat. What do you really want?"

"Well. Having discovered you here in this unfortunate circumstance, I did wonder: is there perhaps anything you wish to ask me?"

Tony scoffed in disgust and looked away. Natasha knew that this was just another game.

But Steve was the team leader, and that meant he had to explore every possible way to save his people, no matter how improbable.

"Could you get us back to Earth?" he asked.

Loki smiled again. "Yes," he said. "I imagine I could."

"But you're not going to."

"You haven't yet shown me how it would be to my advantage."

"The advantage is maybe this time we _don't_ hand you to the Hulk and let him toss you around like a ragdoll," Tony retorted.

Loki spread his hands. "I don't see the beast here, do you? Though that would certainly make your captivity more entertaining."

"Okay, I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm really coming around on that disintegration idea."

"Guys," Natasha said mildly. "Let's start with something a little more… low-key. We've been out of contact these past few days," she said to Loki. "Can you tell us what's been happening on Earth?"

He loved the sound of his own voice. That was the thing. He would say something useful sooner or later, and it would happen sooner if he thought that he was the one directing the conversation.

"I hardly know where to begin," Loki said. "The goat had kids this morning."

(Sooner. Not instantly.)

With a groan, Tony said, "Begin literally anywhere else."

"More than half of the most recent lumber shipment from Wakanda was rotted. Which might have been a simple error, but in light of the bombing—"

"Wait, what bombing?" Steve asked.

"A bomb was set off in New Asgard yesterday morning," Loki said. "An attempt to drive us out. The act itself was committed by the Brenith agent in Wakanda, but support for the sentiment is growing amongst the inhabitants of certain regions of the country. Meanwhile, the hybrid you captured has proclaimed himself to be Wakandan, a fact that your world's media were all too happy to seize upon. Bowing to political pressure, King T'Challa is poised to admit a United Nations inspection team, which is almost certainly a front for more Brenith agents to gain access to those parts of Wakanda that would normally be protected by their energy shield. Ah — and the children's vegetable garden is close to producing their first crop of beans."

"Rhodey was supposed to be en route to Wakanda," Tony said. "Did he make it there? Colonel James Rhodes — do you know who that is?"

"Yes, the one who needs mechanical assistance to walk," said Loki. "We met briefly. He and the other mortal, Barnes, are becoming fast friends. It warms the heart."

Natasha wasn't sure if Loki had been trying to push Tony's buttons with the reference to Barnes, but he could hardly fail to notice that that was what he'd done. Before he could explore that avenue further, she decided to try a button of her own.

"It was the bombing, wasn't it," she said. "You didn't mind the invasion — that's all fun and games. But an attack on New Asgard crossed the line."

Loki's demeanor came down a notch. "Without getting mired in irrelevant details… this Brenith infestation is becoming an inconvenience," he said. "You should never have allowed them to gain a foothold on your planet — a mistake, incidentally, that as your king I would have avoided."

"Damn," said Tony. "Yeah. That _totally_ makes up for the hundreds you killed."

"It _was_ the Brenith woman who betrayed you, was it not? The…" Loki mimed drawing five fingers down his face, everyone's shorthand for Kel. "Thor dismissed me when I warned him that she was an enemy infiltrator. How did she do it, exactly?"

"What does it matter?" Steve asked.

"Whatever she did to you, perhaps she's doing the same to others. Surely you want to warn your remaining friends?"

Natasha showed her palm. "Kel implanted nanites in us through our hands. Once she'd maneuvered us where she wanted us, she sent some kind of signal and knocked us all out. We woke up here."

Loki stopped and stared. "You let a Brenith touch you. You let a Brenith _touch_ you? _All_ of you let a _Brenith_—"

"Yes, and in retrospect, it wasn't our brightest move," Tony said tightly. "Do you have anything constructive to say?"

"That's _revolting_," Loki said with a grimace that looked genuine. "You _do_ understand that they feed through skin contact, don't you? That they don't just offer a hearty handshake out of warm fellow feeling the way—"

"_Hey_," Tony snapped. "Before Kith sucked her into this invasion bullshit, Kel spent _months_ defending us from an alien army. She was tortured and nearly killed _for us_. Whereas you're the guy who spent, like, five minutes leading an alien army _against_ us until we wiped the floor with you. By my count, when it comes to her, that makes you the one person in this solar system who gets to keep his damn mouth shut."

Loki's eyes narrowed. "You still defend her. Interesting."

"Let's stay on topic," said Steve. "It seems we both want the Brenithi off our planet. Do you have something to contribute?"

After a moment, Loki refocused on Steve. "For the purposes of gaining the trust of the Brenithi," he said, "I have been providing their agent in Wakanda with some occasional, modest assistance. At considerable risk to myself, I could attempt to further infiltrate their organization. Then, assuming you manage to extricate yourself from this prison, I would be in a position to supply you with such information as comes my way."

Steve's lip twisted. "In other words, you get to play both sides, and whichever one comes out on top, you can claim you were supporting them all along."

Loki considered that. "Yes. I couldn't have put it better."

"Could be too late," said Tony. "There's a good chance that we're on camera here."

"Oh, you are," Loki said. "But such things don't apply to me unless I wish it."

"You've got all the bases covered, huh."

Steve said, "And in exchange for this arrangement, what exactly would you want?"

"Yes, I've been considering that." Loki turned a pensive gaze to the ceiling. "It's a difficult problem. After all, your planet has so little to offer. I suppose I'll have to be content with… recognition."

"Recognition."

"That's right. Once we're victorious, I want the Avengers to stand before your world leaders and proclaim that I, Loki of Asgard, was instrumental in your salvation. Perhaps Thor will say a few words. And a statue. Something modest. Not gold, necessarily. Whatever your government deems appropriate."

"We'll get right on that," Tony said. "In the meantime, you need to get back to Earth and let people know where we are. Rhodey, Thor, T'Challa—"

"Oh, of course," Loki said quickly. "I'll spread the word. When I'm able. My brother has quite a lot on his plate just now — it might be some time before I can catch his attention. Meanwhile, I'll leave you to your enjoyment of… this. I'm sure we'll speak again soon."

He gave one last unctuous smile. Then a blue and black cloud opened up around him and stole him away.

There was a long pause while Natasha, Steve and Tony collectively exhaled.

Then Steve looked over his shoulder at the entrance to the hallway. "I assume you were all listening to that."

One by one, the rest of their number came bouncing back. Steve and Tony each took a hop to make room, and settled down on opposite ends of the second couch.

"So," Sam said, "did our situation just get better or worse?"

"I know what my vote is," Tony replied.

Steve turned in Tony's direction, and in a low voice, he asked, "Tony, are you… I mean, do we…?"

"Oh, just spit it out."

"A name came up just now that we don't generally discuss."

"And it stays that way," Tony said. "Next topic."

Wanda asked, "Do we have any reason to believe a word Loki says?"

"Nope. Next topic."

"Tony."

"And can you believe the ego on this guy?" Tony snapped. "He wants _speeches_ and a fucking _statue_!"

Clint said, "Aren't you the guy who staged a public awards ceremony just so you could get Senator Stern to pin a medal on you?"

Tony rolled his eyes heavily. "Okay — _one_, that was so many years ago, it could not _possibly_ be relevant, and _two_, _yes_, I took an afternoon to celebrate no longer being about to die of palladium poisoning. Sue me. And that's got _nothing_ to do with—"

"Natasha," Jean said. Her tone, like her body language, was tightly controlled. "You saw his expression. I didn't. The attack on New Asgard. How significant a motivator is that, in your opinion?"

Clint turned to her sharply. "Really? The enemy of my enemy?"

"Acquires some degree of predictability to their actions," she responded.

"All things being equal, if he had the opportunity to undermine us or them, my instinct is that he would choose them," Natasha said. "But I wouldn't wager too much on it."

Sam said, "This might not be a popular opinion, but maybe it's better for us to go along with this. I'd rather have that guy possibly working for us than definitely working against us."

Clint snorted. "I haven't heard much work one way or the other — just a bunch of talk."

"He can come and go," said Natasha. "That's more than any of us can manage."

"And I'd still like an explanation for that," Steve said. "I don't remember teleportation being one of his tricks."

Wanda pushed off the wall and landed in the spot where Loki had stood. Her head tilted slightly, and Natasha sensed that her attention had shifted to somewhere beyond the tangible.

After a moment, she said, "I think I know."

* * *

Rhodes slept on it. And when he woke up the next morning, he wasn't feeling any happier.

Why hadn't Tony just called him? It made no sense.

Tony loved to talk. This wasn't news. As soon as he knew that Rhodes was available — or, failing that, as soon as he knew that Rhodes had been in combat — he should have switched to voice-to-voice. But he hadn't.

Rhodes flipped through the text exchange again. Tony hadn't expressed a hint of concern over his wellbeing. Not even under the guise of checking on how the prostheses had performed. It was almost like…

Like whoever was sending those messages had no personal connection to Rhodes at all, and was just trying to end the exchange.

It was a thought that he could have done without, frankly, because the implications went from bad to worse. However, he couldn't start an international incident — or an interplanetary incident, or whatever kinds of incidents they were into these days — over one out-of-character conversation. The first step was to get some corroborating evidence. So he pulled up his contacts again and sent a brief text to Steve, asking for a status update.

Barely a minute passed before the response came back:

_We have a lead on the rest of the hybrids. We have to move fast. Could be out of contact for a few days._

Which was exactly what Tony had said. Word for goddamned word.

_Understood. Good luck._

All right. Corroboration received. So what next?

He leaned back in the hoverchair and steepled his fingers. (There was a yellow light blinking on the control panel, which he guessed was a reminder that this was public property and he was supposed to return it.) The leg braces stood next to him, fully charged and ready to go. The only thing missing was his next move.

There were a few options that could be rejected immediately. T'Challa would be concerned at the news, of course, but he had more than enough on his plate with a hybrid loose in his country and the UN inspection team due to arrive. By the same token, Thor had made it clear — and Rhodes couldn't criticize him for it — that his focus was on New Asgard and the safety of his people. Neither of them was about to drop everything and start a hunt for the missing Avengers.

He could call Pepper. He _should_ call Pepper. She was going to kill him if he didn't. His thumb scrolled to her name by reflex and hovered over it.

But he couldn't discount the possibility that it really _was_ Steve and Tony on the other end of the line, giving deliberately stilted responses as a discreet distress signal. He had no way of knowing the consequences to them if he raised an alarm indiscriminately. It wasn't fair to Pepper to tell her there was a serious problem if he had no idea what she could do about it.

The last time Rhodes had heard from Tony — definitely, unmistakably Tony — had been while he'd still been en route to Wakanda and the team had been gearing up for their mission in the Mojave desert. Tony had called to let Rhodes know that they were taking off shortly. It took Rhodes a second to account for the time zones, but that conversation had been less than forty-eight hours ago.

Something had happened in those two days. Something he needed to reconstruct before he could figure out how to respond.

These days, his military status was somewhat hazy. People who were paralyzed from mid-back down generally weren't considered eligible for active service, armor suits and automated leg braces notwithstanding. He privately suspected that War Machine was still considered a US Air Force asset in a way that Col. James Rhodes was not.

Still, even if he wasn't a part of the official chain of command anymore, he had plenty of friends who were, and some of them owed him favors. If the desert mission had been a success, then the team should have come out of it with prisoners who would have been turned over to military custody. One thing Rhodes could do was reach out and make some quiet inquiries as to whether that had happened, and where those prisoners had ended up.

And then there was the _other_ source of intel he could pursue.

In spite of having suffered a partially severed spinal cord, Rhodes could feel his toes, flex his ankles, and bend his knees just enough to make putting on a pair of trousers a moderate trial and not an exercise in acrobatics. The reason for that was a young guy named Aaron who had a remarkable gift. For six months, Rhodes had lived in a little house in Sacramento, and Aaron had dropped by daily to work on empathically piecing his spine back together.

Aaron also had a husband named Peter, and Peter had a different sort of gift: a preternatural ability to make friends. Rhodes had been studying the situation for a long time, and that was the only way he could describe it. The kid was freakishly likable. People told him things. _Classified_ things. He had a network of contacts that a foreign intelligence operative would kill for. If there was any way to get in touch with Jean, Peter was the guy who could do it — and if that didn't work, he probably had sources of information that Rhodes didn't. It was worth a shot.

* * *

_Good morning, Colonel Rhodes! It was so lovely to see you again at Steve's party! Aaron says to say hi! Yes, the Avengers are in fact missing, but please don't worry, we are ON IT!_

* * *

_Kid, were you seriously expecting that to make me feel better??_

* * *

Though bureaucracies had a reputation for sluggishness, on this particular occasion, T'Challa had no cause for complaint. Mere hours after Wakanda's United Nations representative issued his statement, his government was contacted with a request for visas for the proposed inspection team. The relevant office sent their affirmative response just as readily. T'Challa had made it abundantly clear that there was to be no stonewalling of any kind. The fastest way to end this situation was to demonstrate that Wakanda had nothing to hide.

As king — and just as importantly, as Black Panther — T'Challa had to avoid the perception of attempting to intimidate the inspection team, meaning that he had to stay at arm's length from the proceedings. However, he did insist on personally reviewing the records of those who would be visiting. The UN contingent comprised some twenty people, including geneticists and other such science experts, security personnel, and administrative assistants.

One of the junior members of the support staff was a familiar face. T'Challa had to smile.

Other small pieces of progress had been made. The weapons cache had been exactly where W'Kabi had claimed. Shuri, who was accompanied by a well-armed squadron from the Dora Milaje, had reported that it contained a tactically significant supply of weapons, including explosives of the type that had been used in New Asgard. Moreover, the cache had been accessed within the last several days, and there appeared to be many items missing. She was in the process of inventorying the remaining contents and arranging for their safe removal.

Not coincidentally, that task would keep her out of the city while the inspection team arrived. If the Black Panther could be considered unduly intimidating to the inspection team, T'Challa shuddered to imagine how they would respond to Shuri hanging over their collective shoulders and maintaining a running commentary on their scientific expertise.

The search for the hybrid — whom T'Challa presumed to be this man K'Tembe, based on Thor's description — had been less successful. Though T'Challa had ordered a thorough search of the territory outside of the shield, not a trace of him had been seen since the confrontation in New Asgard. The man was a ghost.

T'Challa badly wanted to join the search himself. He would have done so, Okoye's objections notwithstanding, if not for the imminent arrival of the inspection team. But under the circumstances, he couldn't afford to be out of contact.

His people were well trained and well armed. They could handle it.

The UN charter flight was due to land in less than two hours. Until they arrived, T'Challa knew that he would be too restless to focus on anything productive. So he decided to indulge in a walk about the city.

T'Challa had carried the title of Black Panther for several years before he'd inherited the throne, and one thing he'd learned was this: neither a king nor a protector should ever see himself as separate from or above his people. For all that Okoye occasionally muttered under her breath about security risks, she understood that he needed to sample the mood of the city, and speak to people outside the formal trappings of the palace. She gave him just a slight frown and no other pushback when he announced his intentions.

He wouldn't admit this to most people for fear of appearing hopelessly sentimental, but when T'Challa walked the streets of Birnin Zana, the atmosphere he most typically felt was one of joy.

Absurd, wasn't it? And wildly over-romanticized. The citizens he encountered were probably traveling to work, or running errands, or picking up their children from school — not unpleasant tasks, one hoped, but hardly sources of bliss. Life everywhere, even in Wakanda, largely came down to routine, where the best one could hope for was a mundane sort of contentment.

But T'Challa still maintained that there was something special about this place. He had never feared that sharing Wakanda with the world would endanger that quality, but he could appreciate the perspective of those on his advisory council who did: if nothing else, they all agreed that their country had a great deal to lose.

He was suddenly gaining an all-new perspective on those fears, because the atmosphere in Birnin Zana had changed. Far from being joyful, the feeling he was picking up on now was…

Anger.

It seemed to coil through the streets like a viper. Where once he would have been greeted with friendly nods, now nearby pedestrians seemed to tense and look away. In response, T'Challa's two Dora Milaje escorts closed ranks.

He wasn't about to be driven away. T'Challa crossed through the marketplace and continued into one of the nearby residential sectors.

Street art was a common phenomenon. There were certain regions of the city that he never tired of visiting, because each time there were guaranteed to be new pieces on display. But this time, the sight he encountered when he rounded a corner brought him to a dead stop. Splashed across the side of an apartment building in white paint was a message:

_ASGARD OUT_

T'Challa turned away and clenched his teeth hard until the impulse to begin shouting orders had passed. A show of authority would be the worst possible response.

"This must not escalate," he said, when he was able to speak quietly. "I need to talk to people. I need to help them understand that…"

But he trailed off when he saw Onje, one of his bodyguards, press her lips together and look away.

"What is it?" he asked her.

Her expression promptly went blank. "Nothing, Your Majesty."

"Onje. I depend upon you for my protection. Surely the least I can do in return is hear your opinion."

She was one of the younger members of the Dora Milaje, having graduated from the training program less than a year ago. With a cautious glance at Naya, her team leader that day, she said, "I was only thinking that our country has seen many changes in a very short time. Perhaps those changes were necessary. Perhaps they will ultimately be for the best. But I wonder, is it so surprising that some of our people feel as though they are being left behind?"

"The Asgardians lost their home," T'Challa countered. "They're the last survivors of their race. What possible threat could they pose to us?"

"They harbor a war criminal!" Onje exclaimed. "And _we_ are the ones now accused of crimes. Would the rest of the world have turned on us so quickly if we had refused Loki sanctuary? Or if…"

"If we had not revealed ourselves at all?" T'Challa suggested.

"The outside world fears our strength," she said. "They'll do anything to take it away from us."

"Some feel this way. Not all."

Onje bowed her head. "Yes, Your Majesty."

"Where are you from, Onje?"

The question was something of a breach of protocol. Members of the Dora Milaje renounced their tribal affiliations, vowing instead to serve the throne. But T'Challa had a suspicion that he wished to confirm.

Still with her eyes lowered, she said, "The Border Tribe, Your Majesty. I had moved to the training garrison a year before the Battle of Mount Bashenga." After a delicate pause, she added, "My father was killed there by the Jabari."

"In that case," T'Challa said, "I am especially grateful for your perspective. Please remind me of it if I should happen to forget."

He looked over his shoulder at the graffiti one last time. The Brenith hybrids were the primary threat at the moment — they and the organization they represented, whatever it happened to be. The first step had to be to clear Wakanda of these spurious accusations.

Once that was done, though, and the blame redirected where it belonged… he suspected that there were some difficult conversations with King Thor ahead. The Loki problem could not be ignored indefinitely.

* * *

There was a lot of emotional triage to be done in the wake of Loki's departure. Tony was spun up from the discussion of Kel's betrayal and the reference to Barnes, but Natasha was very obviously not the right person to tackle those problems. Instead, she focused on the two teammates whom she had a shot at helping: Jean and Clint.

All three of them ended up in Natasha's room, sitting on her cot in a tangle of legs. Jean and Clint both had the distant, glazed looks of people who were reliving traumatic memories. There were things Natasha could try to say, but she knew that the best thing to do was also, in some ways, the hardest: stay quiet and listen.

It took a long time. She lost track of how much.

Then Jean said quietly, "I killed so many during the war. Enemy soldiers. It was necessary. I understood that. I chose to do it. But I never wanted to do it." Her voice dropped in pitch as every muscle in her throat clenched. "_I want to kill him_."

On Natasha's other side, Clint said, "Yeah."

"Yong and I were close. It's no guarantee with siblings, particularly given the age difference — and as a child, I was not altogether pleased with the situation — but as adults…" She wiped her eyes. "He had so much _life_ in him still. He believed in the work he was doing, and I know there were things he planned to… But it's gone now. Ended. And _that man_ stands there mocking us, and I _know_ he doesn't care at all about the things he's done, and I _wish_… I _want to_… Does this just live in my soul now? Do I carry it forever?"

Clint didn't try to answer her question. Instead, after a time, he said, "I could barely remember any of it at first. The images were… twisted up, distorted. Out of order. But after a while, it all started coming back. Everything I did for him. Everyone I killed. How each one felt. The calculation, the snap of the bowstring. I had folks lining up to tell me it wasn't _me_, but they weren't the ones who had to live with the slideshow in their brain. And it got to the point where… I was gearing up to make it stop."

(Natasha knew this already, because she'd found him with the gun in his hand. The fact that he'd let her find him meant that he hadn't made up his mind yet. The fact that the gun was loaded meant that he'd rehearsed the motions before. In her own personal array of painful memories, that one was among the very worst.)

Jean inhaled slowly. "I think… one could understand the desire," she said. "While also being glad that another option prevailed."

"I'm not saying… worse, harder, whatever, because that's bullshit," Clint said. "But I'm claiming seniority. I get him first. You get your shot after I'm down."

Of course, a strict analysis of the timeline would demonstrate that Loki killed Jean's brother _before_ he took over Clint's mind. But that was hardly the point, and Jean was intuitive enough to perceive the safety net she was being offered.

She held his eyes without flinching. "I can accept that," she said. "Did it get easier, with time?"

"Did yours?" Clint asked.

"In some ways. Not in others."

"Yeah."

"I want to ask," she said. "I have for some time now. Because you were there."

Clint nodded.

"When he arrived. And my brother died. Did you see it?"

"You sure you want to hear this?"

"For eight years, I've imagined him crushed in a rockslide," Jean said. "I prefer to live with the truth, whatever it might be."

"Loki killed him. Stabbed through the heart. It was quick."

She nodded once, curtly. "Thank you."

After what she judged was a long enough pause, Natasha said, "I suppose it was too awkward to ask Fury after you punched him in the face."

"_God_," Jean groaned and buried her face in her hands.

"Yeah," Clint said. "Rookie mistake. Intel-gathering comes _before_ face-punching."

"Well," Natasha said, "there are _some_ circumstances…"

"Okay, there are _some_ circumstances, but as a general rule…"

"I hate you both." Jean leaned her head back and contemplated the ceiling. "I've been trying to understand the device Loki used. The mind manipulator. It's the same object that Vision carries now — is that right?"

"The Mind Stone," Natasha said. "Yes. Though we didn't know what was powering the scepter at the time."

"And the story I've heard is that the Stone in fact created Vision? Or at least some portion of him?"

"Something like that, yes."

"It's strange. For having been brought forth by an object that caused so much damage, Vision is so…" Jean shrugged helplessly. "So _polite_."

"There's Stark for you," said Clint. "He decided it was the only way to beat Ultron, and he got everyone out of the way who would have tried to stop him. Sheer luck he didn't fuck us over even worse."

Jean was closest to Tony out of any of them, and Natasha could feel her briefly struggle with a defensive response. But the price of admission to the place where boundaries came down was not judging the things she heard there.

"Desperation tends to yield poor decisions," she said instead.

"But yeah, the Stone." Clint gave a huff of annoyance. "Funny how no one asked if _I_ wanted the guy it built bunking down the hall from me. Best I can figure, it doesn't… if you can even say it _thinks_ or perceives or… whatever, I don't know how to say it. But it doesn't care about right and wrong. Not the way we mean. It cares about _minds_. I think… the Stone's job is to take what's in your mind and make it real. Loki wanted slaves, so it gave him slaves. When Wanda wanted revenge, it helped her get revenge. Ultron was the version of Stark that came out of her mind — the one that destroyed everything he touched.

"Then Vision came along. The body was artificial, and the mind — whatever part of it didn't come from the Stone — was mostly Stark's computer program."

"JARVIS," Natasha supplied in response to Jean's cocked head. "The predecessor to FRIDAY."

"A thing like that wouldn't have any dark fantasies to bring to life. Safer than any of us humans."

"And maybe what Tony and Bruce had uppermost in their minds was a desire to fix things," Natasha added.

Clint shot her a skeptical look, but didn't pursue it. "Anyway. That's what you missed."

"Thank you, that was helpful," Jean said. "And the Tesseract houses one of these Stones as well?"

"That's right," Natasha said. "According to Thor, it's the Space Stone. Clearly it lives up to its name. Loki used it in New York to open the portal that brought in his army. After he was defeated, Thor used it to take them both back to Asgard." She allowed herself a faint sigh. "And then Asgard was destroyed."

Jean sighed, too. "But apparently not before Loki took a souvenir."

"Loki has the fucking Tesseract," Clint said. "_Christ_, I want to kill this guy."

* * *

T'Challa returned to the palace before the UN team arrived. He kept his distance as planned, and monitored reports from his office. They had been assigned official guides from the Foreign Office; all of them were free to move about the city, as any citizen or visitor would be. Inspections of classified research material would have to be scheduled in advance, but T'Challa's stated policy was that nothing would be off-limits.

He found work to do — there was no end of work to do — but in truth he was simply waiting. It would surely take her some time before she was able to leave without arousing suspicion. He had to be patient.

The remainder of the afternoon crept by. Then suddenly a faint set of footfalls brought his head up sharply.

Nakia was still dressed in her Western costume: a narrow blue skirt and a cream-colored blouse. It was distinctly out of place compared with Wakandan fashions, which made it all the more impressive that she'd reached T'Challa's private office without being observed.

At least this time he managed not to bruise his knee on his desk as he stood up to greet her.

"Welcome home," T'Challa said. His smile widened even further when her hands landed in his.

"It's good to be back," she replied

"Do I want to know how you managed to infiltrate the administrative staff of the United Nations?"

"No, probably not."

"I wish I could promise you a restful evening," T'Challa said as they walked through the side door to the antechamber, "but you know how serious our situation is. Tell me everything you've learned."

They sat down together on the padded bench.

"Thanks to that man Adé," Nakia said, "the rest of the world knows about our War Dog tattoos. I had to mask mine." She pulled down her lower lip, and T'Challa was jarred to find it blank. "But there's considerably worse news. Two days ago, the Avengers had a confrontation with a group of hybrids in the Mojave desert. They defeated their enemy and had them taken into custody by local military forces. They also retrieved a collection of power cores — energy reservoirs that were created using the Tesseract and intended for use in experimental energy weapons. These were also delivered to the military base. But according to all my sources, both the prisoners and the power cores were transferred back out again almost immediately — to the _Brenithi_."

T'Challa nodded grimly. "Interesting how that fact hasn't been mentioned in the news."

"Interesting how the Brenithi seem to profit from the actions of the hybrids," she replied. "For all that they play the injured party in public…"

"King Thor and I share a strong suspicion that the Brenithi engineered the hybrids themselves," T'Challa said. "Do you agree?"

"Without question," said Nakia, "and I can tell you more than that. While I was in Geneva, I overheard the Brenith UN representative and some of their staff. They often speak to each other in their own language. I recorded their conversations and translated them later so they wouldn't perceive that I could understand them. Ever since they made contact with Earth, their goal has been to steal Wakanda's vibranium. They haven't made an attempt yet because they had no way to breach our shield. But now that they've acquired a portion of the power of the Tesseract, they're emboldened to try."

Nakia lowered her voice. "I believe that I am not the only person on the inspection team who is not who she claims to be," she said. "I believe there is a Brenith agent on the team whose mission is to destroy the shield. And although I have no direct evidence of this, I believe they have smuggled in the Tesseract cores to use as weapons. If even one of those cores is detonated inside the shield generation facility, the shield will be destroyed and Wakanda will be defenseless."


	15. Chapter 15

Wakanda was almost half a day ahead of California. Peter was answering his texts in the middle of the night, but he pointed out that Pepper probably wouldn't be awake until much later. That left Rhodes with an entire day with nothing to do but get more and more keyed up.

In an attempt to put some of his nervous energy to good use, he spent most of the day in New Asgard, where the cleanup was ongoing. For the sake of his people, Thor was still putting on a brave front, directing the reconstruction of the settlement with terse efficiency even though that kind of managerial role didn't fit him particularly well. There were no further disturbances from the hybrid or from Loki, who didn't show his face all day.

Later that evening, after Rhodes got back to his suite, he got the text from Peter that he'd been waiting for: Pepper was (a) alive, (b) awake, and (c) alone. He made the call.

"Pepper, I had a conversation with our mutual friend Peter this morning that I hope to _hell_ was a practical joke."

(There were times for small talk. This wasn't one of them.)

On the other end of the line, Pepper sighed. "Rhodey…"

"Seriously — you will _never_ believe the story I heard today," he said. "First of all, I heard that the Avengers have been missing for the last two days, _you've_ known about it for at least half that time, and you didn't so much as give me a heads-up. _Then_ I heard that a Brenith hybrid — you know, like the guy that the team and I tangled with in Germany, who nearly kicked our asses? — that one of them tracked you down and sold you some half-baked story about being a traitor."

"Rhodey—"

"And you know what my favorite part is? _This_ is the best part. This will really make you laugh. I heard that this woman — who is _obviously_ lying, by the way — has lured you out into the desert with a _ridiculous_ story about knowing where Tony and the others are being kept, and based on nothing but her word, the two of you are planning to launch a rescue mission. Otherwise known as _walking into an ambush_. Now… Peter can't possibly be serious about this, right? This is a joke. The guy's joking. Right?"

"Are you going to let me talk?"

"You know what? _No_, I don't think I am! This woman — she's there with you right now, isn't she? You're really doing this?"

"Her name is Anna," Pepper said, because that was definitely the most relevant detail. "We're in a motel. She's in the other room."

"Oh good — you've got drywall and a deadbolt between you. That'll keep her out for half a second."

"She hasn't made any threatening moves, and she's had plenty of chances," said Pepper. "We've been traveling alone together since yesterday."

"Right," Rhodes said, "you've been traveling together. Which you can do because no one's looking for you, because you gave Stark Industries some kind of reason why you needed to be out of the office for a few days. Which gives your new buddy that much more of a head start if you happen to go missing. _That's_ a threatening move! She's managed to isolate you, and you helped her do it! Pepper, please listen: is there a populated area somewhere close by? A town, a truck stop, anything?"

"Yes, we're just outside a town, but—"

"Okay. You need to get yourself in front of witnesses right now. Don't stop, don't think, just walk out the door, get in your car and drive. I'll call a friend of mine at Edwards who can hopefully send you some backup and start escalating this up the chain, and in the meantime—"

"No, you can't!" she snapped, and the intensity in her voice pulled him up short.

Rhodes leaned back in the desk chair and took a breath. He wished he could see her face to face. Look her in the eyes, read her expressions… try to understand what was going through her head. Because this was _painfully_, _obviously_ a trap, and Pepper was much too smart not to know that, so why was she throwing herself into it anyway?

"Pepper—"

"Rhodey—"

They both stopped.

"I understand how reckless this must sound to you," Pepper said after a moment. "But if Anna is telling the truth, then the entire team could be shipped to j'Brenn in two days. I can't take that chance. I just can't."

"What if you're the one taken prisoner?" Rhodes countered. "How do you think Tony will handle that news?"

She sighed again. "Jim. Please. I need you to trust me. I can handle this. I promise you, I know what I'm doing."

Wow. The first name. That was the big gun.

Rhodes knew why Pepper might _think_ she could handle this. They never discussed it — she'd only acknowledged it in his presence one time, during the portal incident — but she had the capabilities of an Extremis soldier.

And this was the thing that civilians never understood about combat: an arsenal of powers wasn't enough. No one ever knew how they were going to react to their first time under fire. It took training and experience to learn how to keep your head, and even then, plenty of people couldn't do it.

He would have hoped that Pepper had some kind of perspective on the difference, even under the added pressure of Tony's life being at stake. Maybe she really was that desperate.

But there were worse rules to live by than 'Don't underestimate Pepper Potts'. Rhodes had to acknowledge that maybe — _maybe_ — he was the one who didn't have all the facts.

"I probably can't stop you," he said. "But if you expect me not to even try, then _please_ tell me that you've considered the possibility that Tony isn't there and this is a trap. If your buddy turns on you, do you have a backup plan?"

The pause went on a lot longer than he would have liked.

"If that happens," Pepper said, "I know what I have to do. And even if Tony isn't there now, he was. There'll be something to go on."

That was awfully thin. But Pepper already knew that.

"I hope you're right," said Rhodes. "And from now on, I want to hear from you. Check in at regular intervals, got it?"

"I will."

After they disconnected, Rhodes spent some time imagining what Tony would say if he knew what Pepper was doing — and if he knew that Rhodes wasn't putting a stop to it. Even the imagined tirade was making him wince.

Long before his mental Tony got through listing all the ways that Rhodes was currently acting like an idiot, someone knocked at his door. Rhodes opened it to find everybody's best buddy Barnes in the corridor.

"The king wants to see us," said Barnes, who also wasn't much on small talk.

"Doesn't the king have a staff to handle this kind of thing?"

"They tried calling. You rejected it."

"What?"

"Did your bead flash?"

"_What_?"

"The bracelet."

Rhodes glanced down at his wrist. "Oh. Yeah, actually. It blinked, I tapped it, nothing happened."

"That was a call," said Barnes. "You need to turn your palm up before you tap the bead. Then you get a hologram."

"This—" he gestured at the damned thing "—is _not_ an intuitive user interface!"

Barnes shrugged. "You coming?"

* * *

Pepper sat in silence for a long time after Rhodey hung up.

The motel room was small and dingy. She was sitting in the only chair, which had squeaky joints and a violently orange seat cushion. The surface of the desk was pitted and worn with use; she was staring through it without really seeing it.

It was understandable that Rhodey didn't quite believe her, but she did know what she was doing. She walked through the steps of the plan again, testing their strength like links in a chain. The scenario was playing out the only way it could.

Certain of the specifics, however, depended on Anna, and exactly how far Pepper could trust their alliance. Maybe it was time to do a bit of team building.

Outside Anna's room, Pepper raised her hand to knock. The door opened a second before her knuckles made contact.

"What do you want?" Anna said.

"Can I come in?"

With a faint sigh, she stepped back from the threshold.

The room was essentially identical to Pepper's. There was a small desk and a chair, a TV on a stand, and a minifridge in the corner. The queen size bed took up most of the floor space.

Anna retreated to the bed. The defiant look on her face made a strange contrast to the way she put her back to the headboard and pulled one knee up to her chest.

"I was thinking of going to pick up some lunch soon," Pepper said. "Are you hungry?"

Anna gave a bitter sort of laugh. "Oh, you wouldn't like me when I'm hungry."

Pepper pulled out the chair and turned it to face her. "So you… you do…"

"Feed?" Anna suggested. "Consume human life to sustain myself? Yes, I do. As I asked you before: are you squeamish?"

"About cannibalism? Yes. That I'm squeamish about."

She scoffed. "That's an unduly sensational term. What we do doesn't involve the flesh. For that matter, j'Brenithi find the entire notion of taking in nourishment by mouth to be distasteful in the extreme. I think they were disappointed that our digestive systems remained functional after the transformation."

This was obviously about provoking a reaction. Anna was doing roughly the same thing Pepper was, albeit from the other direction: testing the boundaries of their alliance.

There was nothing to be gained by taking the bait where Anna's feeding habits were concerned. Instead, Pepper asked, "Were you warned in advance about what you would be turned into?"

"You assume that words exist to describe this." Anna's expression lost a bit of its edge. "The transformation itself wasn't so bad," she said. "They kept us sedated through the worst of it. It's afterward, when… when you wake up for the first time, and you can feel _everything_. You're a world unto yourself. You have no body. You have hundreds of bodies. You're everywhere. And you're _starving_.

"Then they take your hands and they place them on skin. Some poor soul who won't be missed. I never found out who. In that moment, all you know is that the energy at your fingertips is _exactly_ what you need to complete yourself. You absorb it, and it fulfills you in a way that nothing in your human life ever did. It is a glimpse of perfection."

Anna leaned her head back. "It isn't until much later that you wake up and see the mess," she said. "And by then it's too late. You'll never forget the bliss. If you want to, eventually you can learn to hold yourself back. Take a taste, not an entire life. If you want to. Most of us don't."

"Why would you volunteer for something like that?"

Anna scoffed. "You of all people have to ask?"

"Extremis was done to me without my consent," Pepper said sharply. "I would _never_ have allowed it if I'd been given the choice."

Anna's mouth twisted skeptically. Then her arm was a blur — Pepper's hand came up instinctively — and the blade of a hunting knife skewered her palm with a flash of spectacular pain.

Just for a second, though. The sensation had barely registered before it was gone again, replaced by the wonderful heat of the fire. Heat, and…

_Rage_.

(Not from her but from the thing inside her, not that that made it any less her responsibility to control, and she _could_ control it, she _had_ to, but—)

_how dare you damage me how dare you challenge me just come for my skin try it just try plunging your hands into molten steel and see what's left I'll burn you to the ground I'll—_

And she suddenly discovered that she and Anna were toe to toe. Pepper had the knife clutched in her hand, ready to plunge down, and Anna was just as ready to block.

_No. We don't do this. We don't do this._

With all her willpower, she wrested control back from the fire. It wanted to kill. She didn't have to.

Pepper opened her hand and let the knife fall. With that same inhuman turn of speed, Anna snatched it out of the air before it hit the carpet, and slid it back into the holster on her belt that Pepper hadn't noticed before.

"There now," Anna said quietly. "We're not so different, are we? Under the skin."

Pepper's hand had long since healed, and the orange glow was gone. She clenched her fists to keep herself from shaking and turned away. "I never asked for this," she said. "I don't want it. If I could—"

"If you could get rid of it, you would? No, you wouldn't." The box springs creaked as Anna returned to the bed. "That's just something you tell yourself because you know you'll never actually have to make the choice."

Anger colored Pepper's tone in spite of her efforts. "And you're certain of this after knowing me for a few hours?" she asked.

"You lived all those years with Stark," said Anna, "knowing that when it came to enhanced or extraterrestrial threats, you had to depend on him to protect you. How many times did you come under attack because someone from _his_ past was carrying a grudge? And now you've finally come up to his level. You might even have a chance to protect him for once. Look at what you're doing right now. You'll never give that up."

Pepper chose not to engage with that particular theory. "Speaking of protection," she said, and turned to face Anna again, "you told me before that you have people that you care about. Who are they?"

"Why?"

"Because I'm still trying to understand your motives."

Anna grimaced in annoyance, but she didn't try to argue. "I have a sister," she said. "We lost our parents several years ago. Soon after, we had a falling-out. You know how messy family drama can be. And I think it's worth pointing out that she is not at all a good person."

"How's that?" Pepper asked.

"She uses people. She uses them, and when she's done, she throws them away. It's astonishing, in fact, some of the damage she's done. And yet she always manages to find a new crowd that she can sweet-talk into giving her a second chance. Whereas all the time I was on my own, just trying to survive, I never got so much as…" She looked away. "But even so, in spite of all the bad blood… I'd like to see her again."

"Do you know where she is?"

"Far away. Out of reach. But perhaps that will change one day." Anna gave her head a quick shake as if to dismiss the memories. "I've been profoundly angry at people before. But that's nothing compared with how contemptuously j'Brenithi view humanity. They chose us for their hybridization program because they think we have the capacity for that same contempt. I eventually remembered how to care enough not to kill. Most of us don't." Casually, she added, "It was the half-human who trained the first of us, you know. She's a very efficient killer. Control was not on the curriculum."

Pepper flinched in spite of herself. "I thought Kel didn't kill humans."

"Yes, who could have guessed that matters of ethics could be so situation-dependent?" Anna said. "Just count yourself lucky that she won't be in the desert."

"Aren't you a lot stronger than she is?"

"There's more to it than that. But while we're on the subject, can _you_ fight? I know the Extremis formula wants to, but can you actually get out of your own way and let it?"

The rage didn't come out for simple things. A papercut or a turned ankle were still ordinary human problems, unless Pepper actively called the fire up. But bigger injuries — a blade through the hand, for instance — tended to flip the switch: Extremis took over until she fought it back.

Back in the early days, Tony had cautiously suggested some training sessions. Pepper's coping mechanisms had been veering wildly between "barely hanging on" and "incredibly unwise" at that point; she still wasn't sure which end of the spectrum she'd been on when she'd agreed. The heavily fortified bunker at the base of Stark Tower had been originally intended for the Hulk, so at least Pepper had been confident that she couldn't do any significant damage if she lost control.

Over the course of a few weeks, she'd established some reference points for how much pain or injury it took to call the fire. But the part that happened next, when Extremis took over, remained out of her control. Her body simply _did_ things — largely for the purpose of destroying anyone and everyone around her — and the best she could hope for was to force herself to a standstill. Tony had made some noises about Bruce and learning to control the monster within, but Pepper had felt very strongly that pursuing this angle was doing her more harm than good.

She did not particularly want to share that story with Anna, however.

"I'll do whatever I need to do," she said.

"Uh-huh." Anna's expression was blatantly skeptical. "We'll take the day to rest, and start getting into position tonight. I think it's best if we eat separately."

* * *

Rhodes looked up — way up — at the shield generator. It was spinning. It was glowing. It was surrounded by computers and holographic displays. It looked exactly how the source of a city-sized holographically camouflaged force shield was supposed to look.

"Okay," he said, and turned back to T'Challa. "I'm definitely impressed. But what could we possibly do that your own security forces can't do just as well?"

Next to him, Barnes stood impassively. Because that was a new look for him.

"Naturally, the responsibility for our security ultimately rests with us," T'Challa said. "However…" He paused, and his voice lowered. "There are a number of problems. You're aware, of course, of the incident with Erik Stevens two years ago. In the aftermath, I was forced to disband the military forces of the Border Tribe, which have historically been charged with Wakanda's defense. The Dora Milaje are stretched thin simply maintaining regular patrols over our unshielded territories. If I pull enough of them back to truly secure this region of the city, then I leave Wakanda vulnerable to external threats. Furthermore, I have to assume that the majority of the inspection team is simply here to do their job. A significant show of force could be viewed as an act of intimidation, and I hope to avoid that if possible." T'Challa's gaze dropped for a moment. "I'm sorry — I realize that Wakanda's problems are not your responsibility."

"No, that's what I came here for in the first place," Rhodes said quickly. "To help out if Wakanda becomes a target. What can I do?"

"As an Avenger, you don't represent Wakanda," T'Challa said, "If anything, you report to the UN, just as the inspection team does. You can interact with them, and perhaps discover if anyone is acting suspiciously."

"Absolutely." If nothing else, it would give him something to focus on besides Pepper.

"And in the meantime, Sergeant Barnes, we know that the infiltrator has a Wakandan advising them," T'Challa continued. "They will be prepared for our usual tactics. Not for yours. Where are the weaknesses in this place? How would you defend it?"

Barnes nodded.

"You can count on us," Rhodes said. "We won't let these guys take your city."

* * *

The mood on the Moon had lightened a little in the time since Loki had left them, but it was still subdued. Jean and Clint were mostly keeping to themselves, and the rest of the prisoners were giving them as much space as could be arranged under the circumstances. Natasha didn't mind the quiet, and she didn't think it was doing any harm for now. They would need to have a serious discussion of their options eventually, but there was no sense of urgency while they remained trapped.

Each prisoner had been issued only one uniform. Luckily, laundry facilities were built into the habitat: Natasha scrubbed herself down in the shower, and by the time she was done, the nanotech in the floor had done the same to the clothes she'd left on the floor.

Once she was dressed again, she left the washroom and found Steve lurking outside her bedroom door.

"Hey, Nat," he said when she got within range. "Do you have a minute?"

Objectively speaking, it was a ridiculous question, but Natasha appreciated the thought. "Sure," she said, and beckoned for him to follow her inside.

A little stiffly, Steve took a seat on the cot next to her. "I've been searching for the right time to bring this up," he said in a near-whisper, "if there _is_ a right time to bring this up. But yesterday, right before Loki arrived, you and Clint were having a conversation." He gave her an apologetic sort of wince. "Normally I would ignore anything I might have overheard… but you were discussing the woman from the desert."

"Damn," Natasha said, feeling a little chagrined in spite of herself. "I need to stop underestimating that hearing of yours."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Trying-to-be-sensitive Steve was one of Natasha's favorite flavors of Steve, if only because it was so easy to fluster him.

"What do you think?" she countered.

Steve's cheeks flushed in response. "I guess that's fair. Sorry."

Natasha touched his arm before he could get up to leave. "But I'll answer your questions anyway," she said. "What do you want to know?"

"You didn't come out and say it," Steve said, "but that woman—"

"Anna."

"Anna. She came from the same program you did — is that right?"

"That's right." Natasha tucked one leg beneath her and folded her hands on her other knee. "Only a small number from each cohort survived to graduation. Sometimes no one did. Anna was eight years behind me, and she was a front-runner. She'd made five kills by the time she was twelve. Broke my record."

Steve tried to hide his grimace, without much success.

"Unfortunately, the program was already on its last legs," Natasha said. "After the Soviet Union fell, it was purchased by private interests, who kept it limping on for a while. But private interests can be so fickle. The Red Room was shut down a few years after I graduated. The older students were executed. The younger ones were sold. And a few escaped."

She hadn't thought about the others in years. Not until she'd seen Anna in the desert that day. There was so much shame tied up in that portion of her life — over what she'd been taught to do, and what she'd chosen to do — that it had been simpler to put it all behind her. She'd gotten her second chance when she'd joined SHIELD. Somehow she'd dared to imagine that maybe that would be good enough.

"I heard about the purge while I was working freelance," she told Steve. "No one ever came after me. Once the Red Room went dark, I took the name for myself. Black Widow. And I didn't spend one second searching for any of the others. They were my sisters, and I abandoned them."

"You saved yourself," Steve offered quietly.

"You know that I did far worse than that." Natasha gave him a faint smile, though, for trying. "I _chose_ not to go back, because it was easier not to care. That's all."

"So it's safe to assume that she's holding a grudge."

"Wouldn't you?" she asked. "I don't know how the Brenithi found her, but Anna was the perfect candidate: all they had to do was offer her the strength to take us apart. In exchange for that, she would do anything."

"But we have an advantage," Steve said. "You know her training. You know how she thinks."

"I know how angry she is. Trust me — that's no advantage."

* * *

One of the things that Peter was still getting used to about superhero stuff was that, even when you were in the middle of an important mission, a whole lot of the time it was really _boring_.

For example: this secret SHIELD base was in the Mojave desert, which was a long ways away from Sacramento. So the group of them — him, the other Peter, Kiran and Ant-Man — had flown to LA, rented a truck, bought supplies, and driven for hours out into the middle of nowhere. Important, necessary stuff… that took _forever_, and where there was nothing for him to do but sit around and wait.

They were finally getting close to their goal, though. The roads had ended over an hour ago, and they'd been driving over sand, navigating by the other Peter's GPS tracker. The coordinates that he was tracking were just a few miles away.

Kiran, who'd been doing the driving for this last leg, slowed to a halt. "The base is within range of the drone. Scott, are you ready?"

"Oh, I'm ready," said Scott, who was in the back seat next to Peter. "Fire it up."

The basic plan was, Scott was going to shrink and ride the other Peter's drone the last couple of miles to the base, then start his infiltration and report back by radio. The rest of the team had to stay far enough away that they wouldn't get picked up by the hybrids' empathic sense. If there were actually any hybrids in the place.

Anyway, there was still nothing for Peter to do. He got out of the truck along with everyone else, and watched while the other Peter set up his drone and Ant-Man activated his suit. Once the drone was on its way, they all had to wait until Scott reached the compound. Peter decided to take a walk to stretch his legs.

The desert had been cool for the first half hour or so, but now it was just sandy and boring, and _really_ hot after being in the air-conditioned truck. He pushed his sunglasses up his nose and took a drink of water.

Just then, his phone buzzed. (It was kind of amazing that he even had reception out there.) Peter pulled it out, and winced: the text was from Ned.

_Hey, how's it going? I'm really sorry about your grandma._

It sucked, having to lie to his best friend, especially about something like that. But this mission was definitely _not_ the kind where Ned could be the guy in the chair. It had been horrible enough, seeing Kel threaten May. He didn't want her going anywhere near his friends, or them going anywhere near her.

_Thanks. It's going okay. I mean, for funeral stuff._

_So you're in Charlotte?_

_Yeah. For a couple more days at least. I'm not sure._

_It's just that your phone says you're in California._

_Dude! Why are you tracking my phone??_

_You left the app on! Look, you don't have to tell me everything, but… this is Avenger stuff, isn't it?_

Peter scowled.

_Yeah. It's Avenger stuff. And you CAN'T TELL ANYONE! Got it??_

_Sure, no problem! Good luck!_

"Everything okay?"

He looked up from his phone. The other Peter was watching him curiously.

"Yeah, sure, I'm good," he said. "It's just my friend Ned. He knows about Spider-Man and all that, and he helped me out a couple times. And he's figured out that something's going on now, but I haven't told him about the Avengers being missing or what we're doing here."

"That's probably good," the other Peter said. "We don't want people panicking or passing on misinterpreted information. Not when we have no idea how the Brenithi would react."

"Yeah." Peter ducked his head. "By the way, thanks for talking to May last night. She's been pretty upset about all this."

"She cares about you. And you're probably gonna think this is weird coming from someone my age, but… you're young enough that it's still her job to keep you safe. You know?"

"But when I have the power to help people, don't I _have_ to, even if it's dangerous?"

"I can't tell you the answer to that," the other Peter said, even though it looked like he wanted to say something more. "It's your decision."

Maybe he didn't want to be talking about this anymore. "How's Ant-Man doing?" he asked.

The other Peter looked over his shoulder. "Kiran is flying my drone. Which is perfectly fine. I have no issues with this because I am _not_ freakishly possessive about my tech. They dropped off Scott a minute ago. Want to head back and see how it's going?"

Back at the truck, Kiran was packing up the drone.

"Any news?" the other Peter asked.

"He's talking about ants," Kiran said, looking pained. "Let me state for the record that I did not ask one question about ants, and yet I am receiving an unrelenting stream of ant facts."

Their team had headsets and radio communications — not quite as nice as the kind Mr. Stark used, but they seemed to be working okay. Though… maybe Peter didn't need to put his headset on just yet.

"Ants are his thing," the other Peter said. "It's right there in the name."

"Spider-Man does not speak incessantly about spiders."

"Come on, he's just nervous. You've been doing your intense face all morning." The other Peter checked over his drone, then closed up the box and stored it in the trunk. "Can you sense anything?"

"I don't perceive much detail over this kind of distance," Kiran replied. "I'm confident that Scott isn't walking into a massive disruption in the nature of reality. To pick up something more specific, I would have to get a lot closer." Kiran paused, and raised a hand to the receiver hooked over their ear. "All right, he's reached the site. Can you put the sound on speaker?"

They all climbed back into the truck. The other Peter had brought communications equipment with him (it looked homemade, which Peter respected). He set up a two-way radio on the console between the two front seats, and flicked a switch.

"I have breached the perimeter," came Scott's voice. "Proceeding into the facility."

The other Peter picked up the microphone and asked, "Have you seen anyone yet?"

"Not yet. It's a big compound. I'm not seeing any footprints, either — not around here, anyway. If I have to do all my searching at this size, then this is gonna take a while."

"Okay, we'll be waiting," said the other Peter. "Keep us posted."

Then it was back to waiting around and doing nothing.

It took a really, _really_ long time for anything to happen. Peter and Peter kind of chatted for a bit, but it was pretty awkward when Kiran seemed to be trying to meditate or something. Eventually they all fell silent.

_Finally_, after what felt like _hours_, the radio crackled to life again. "You guys still there?" Scott asked. "I've reached the second building."

Peter nearly fell out of his seat. "All that time and he only did one building?"

"He's the size of an ant," Kiran said. "This is not going to happen quickly."

The other Peter picked up the microphone again and asked, "Do you see any signs that anyone has been there recently?"

"Uh… not really. Basically, I'm seeing sand. Lots of sand. There's sand outside, sand inside, sand on the… whoa. Hang on, guys."

"What is it?"

"Okay. I've gone inside a building that looks like records storage. It's full of metal shelves and file boxes. There've definitely been people here recently. I'm walking through a bunch of footprints. But there's something else, too. At the back of the room, I can see a space on the floor where the sand has been cleared off. I'm checking it out."

Peter's fists clenched. This was it. This was _it_.

"There's a trap door in the floor," Scott said. "It's closed right now, but I think I can… yeah, I can fit through. I'm going in."

"Be careful," the other Peter told him.

After a moment, Scott said, "I'm in a passageway with stairs leading down. Lots of stairs. The lights are on, and the construction looks new — there's hardly any sand or dust. I seriously doubt the Avengers did a bunch of renovations while they were here. If you want evidence that someone besides them was here recently, I think I'm looking at it."

"So Anna was telling the truth!" Peter exclaimed.

"We're not there yet," said Kiran. "Someone else is using the site, but we have no idea what they're using it for."

"Scott? How's it going?"

"Still working on the stairs," he said. "There really are a lot of stairs. I'll let you know."

Peter felt like if he didn't get to do something soon, he was going to vibrate right out of his skin. "If Ant-Man finds the Avengers down there," he said, "are we really just going to turn around and leave them behind?"

"Yes," Kiran said shortly. "We are not equipped for a rescue mission. Your friend Happy was right — the best place to hit them is on the road."

"Okay, guys, I'm at the bottom of the stairs," came Scott's voice. "There's a door. I'm going underneath it." His voice lowered. "I'm in a huge concrete chamber. The lights are on in here, too. There's almost nothing in the room — just a platform in the middle with a chair on it. I don't see anyone."

"Are there any other doors?" the other Peter asked.

After a pause, Scott replied, "Yeah. There's a door on the other side of the room. It's open. I can't see much of what's on the other side, but it looks like a hallway. I'm heading there now."

Maybe it was true. Maybe it was all true. All the Avengers were stuck underground just a couple miles away. They were in trouble, and Peter couldn't imagine just—

"Uh… hold on a second," Scott said. "That's weird."

"What is it?"

"The ground is getting kind of… wait, what the… _oh sh_—"

The transmission cut to static.

"Scott?" The other Peter started turning dials on the radio. "Scott, what happened? Are you there?"

"What is it?" Peter asked.

"I don't know. Everything's fine on this end. He's not transmitting anymore."

"We have to go after him!"

"No," Kiran said. "That is the one thing we can't do. We have no idea what they have down there, but as soon as we get within range, they'll know exactly what we have up here. We're automatically at a disadvantage."

"But if they captured Ant-Man, then they already know someone's found them, which means they might change their plans for moving the Avengers tomorrow!"

"_If_ the Avengers are actually there and this whole thing isn't a trap!"

"Peter's right," the other Peter said. "We have no choice now. Someone's down there, and they know they've been found. There's no chance they just proceed with their plans like nothing happened. We need to stop them now while we still know where they are. And besides, we can't leave Scott behind and I know that you know that, so you can stop pretending like you don't."

It was Kiran who looked away first.

"All right," they said after a moment. "Spider-Man, I'll assume that you want to suit up for this. I also need you to send a message to Happy so that he can warn Pepper to be on the alert. Peter, you're driving. You drop us off, then you turn around and head in the opposite direction at top speed, and you don't stop for fifty miles. Don't even think about arguing — you're not a combatant and I'm not going to be the one who explains this to Aaron. I'll call you on my burner phone if and when we're secure."

Peter was already shucking his street clothes and pulling on his suit. He tapped out a quick text to Happy — who was probably going to be pretty upset about this — then left his phone on the seat beside him. In the front, the other Peter shut down the radio, then he and Kiran switched seats so that he was driving.

Then there was this weird moment when everything went still.

Kiran turned to look into the back seat. "Spider-Man. We weren't expecting to go into combat, and I have no idea how messy this is going to get. You don't have to come along. Truly you don't. I'll go after Scott alone."

But Peter shook his head. "I won't let you go in there by yourself. Not when I can help."

Kiran studied him for a moment with narrowed eyes, then gave a nod. "All right. Then we're ready."

The other Peter turned the key in the ignition and gunned it for the SHIELD base.

The truck rattled and jolted over the sandy terrain. They'd been parked about two miles away from their target, a distance that didn't take long to cover at all once they got up to speed.

Soon the compound came into view: buildings, most of them wrecked and bordered by sand drifts, and beyond them, a massive array of satellite dishes. The near edge of the array teetered on the edge of a deep ravine.

The other Peter's hands were white-knuckled on the steering wheel. He swung it hard to the left and the truck cornered sharply, tossing up waves of sand as it went. Peter pulled on his mask, and the moment the truck came to a halt, he leaped out and tumbled across the sand. Kiran did the same from the other side, and a flick of their hand sent the two doors slamming shut. The truck revved its engine again and accelerated away.

There was no one else in sight except for the two of them. Peter had no idea where they were relative to the place Ant-Man had found.

"There," Kiran said, and pointed up ahead. The gesture left a faint trace of blue energy hanging in the air.

Peter followed. But even though there were no enemies in sight, there was something… there was _something_…

The sensation suddenly blew up from nagging to desperate. "_Jump_!" he shouted without knowing why, and launched himself into the air.

_Something_ exploded from the sand beneath his feet an instant later — a net of thick black cables — and wrapped around the empty space where he'd just been standing. It got tangled up in itself and fell back to the ground, apparently neutralized. Peter landed a few yards away.

Kiran wasn't as quick, and the second net enveloped them completely.

Peter turned to help, but before he made it more than a step, a brilliant blue glow lit up from within the trap. It flared in intensity to the point where Peter had to shield his eyes, and when he looked again, the net had been burned off.

Kiran was clutching one arm and looking winded. "Don't let them touch you. They're drugged."

"Are you okay?"

"It hardly matters. _Move_."

Another flare of blue magic launched Kiran into the air. Peter followed, leaping and dodging from side to side in case of more traps. They were both racing toward the building that Kiran had pointed to earlier. Kiran fired a blast of energy into the ground just before coming in for a landing. Then they paused, and raised both hands to the sky. Energy gathered, glowing brighter and brighter blue until it almost looked white.

Kiran thrust both hands forward, and the blast leveled the building.

It must have been the place Ant-Man described. In the debris left over, there were wads of paper that had been set on fire by the explosion, and metal poles and struts that might have supported shelves before they got twisted up like balloon animals.

Also in the debris, knocked off their feet by the shock wave, were the two people who must have been lying in wait. They both stood up again, and as Peter watched — he'd seen Kel do this exact thing before — the cuts and burns on their faces and hands faded away to nothing.

They were a man and a woman, and they had to be hybrids.

"Well," the man said, "this could be interesting."

Kiran sent off another blast, and Peter fired his webshooters. Both hybrids dodged easily, and broke into a sprint in opposite directions. At the same time—

_Aw, crap—_

And Peter just barely dodged the gunshot. He managed to glance over his shoulder, and — yeah, it looked like Kiran's force field could handle bullets. But that was all the attention he could spare, because the hybrid seemed to know — or, well, he _did_ know — exactly where Peter was planning to jump. Peter barely dodged another shot, barely dodged again, and fired another line of webbing at the gun.

The hybrid evaded it easily.

_He's as fast as me_.

He fired another web and snagged a chunk of metal debris this time, and swung it as hard as he could towards the hybrid — much harder than he ever would have against an ordinary person. But the guy barely even flinched as he swatted it to the ground.

_He's as strong as me, too_.

The gunfire started up again, and every bullet missed but every web missed too, and he didn't dare jump too high or too far because once you were a projectile you were predictable, and the guy had to run out of bullets soon, that would be his window to—

Then a slice of white-hot pain cut across his thigh.

He cried out before he could stop himself, and his leg skidded out from under him. The hybrid shifted his aim, and Peter knew he wasn't going to be fast enough, he wasn't—

But then some instinct caused him to look up, and he saw a large dark object plummeting out of the sky.

The hybrid saw it coming too, and tried to dodge out of the way. But the thing, whatever it was, moved with him.

For a second Peter thought it was a missile. But instead of exploding, it unfolded like a big angry tent and slammed into the ground, enveloping the hybrid in some kind of solid black dome about fifteen feet across. The ground shook with the impact, then did it a second time as the second hybrid was contained the same way.

Peter braced himself for a third… tent-missile or whatever inbound, but the sky was empty.

Kiran came up alongside him and offered a hand. They didn't look injured, but they did look almost as weirded out as Peter was.

Standing up hurt pretty badly, but this didn't seem like a good time to mention it. Peter's instincts weren't giving him any more danger signals. But he didn't have any idea what was going on.

"Um," Peter said, and looked at Kiran. "Do you think this is a good thing?"

"No."

A moment later, he caught a sound coming from beyond the field of satellite dishes — a rhythmic sort of whirring that he realized after a second was from a helicopter. Another black dot appeared in the sky, approaching a lot slower than the missiles had.

He and Kiran waited in silence as the helicopter closed in and eventually settled down on the sand on the other side of the compound.

The back door opened. A man stepped down and started walking towards them. Even in the desert, the man was dressed all in black, with a long black coat that billowed behind him.

Peter wasn't sure at first. He'd only read about him in the news. But as the man drew closer, there was no question about it. It was Nick Fury, the Director of SHIELD.

Director Fury stopped in front of them, crossed his arms, and said, "Pepper Potts wants you to know that this was _not_ what she had in mind."


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the erratic posting schedule. We live in interesting times.
> 
> Hope everyone is staying as safe and healthy as possible out there.

**Interstice**

_"You're certain?"_

_"Oh, yes. The records are unambiguous. For a brief time, the environmental systems were supporting more than seven Terran bodies."_

_"And the cameras?"_

_"The source could not be determined."_

_"I shall look into it. In the meantime, let us give our pet Secretary of State a field trip."_

* * *

Peter was still trying to come to grips with reality. Nick Fury, Director of SHIELD, was fifteen feet away from him and scowling fiercely.

He heard the crunch of sand behind him, and a moment later, Kiran's hand landed on his shoulder. The grip was tight enough that Peter suspected it would have hurt if he'd had only a normal person's strength.

"Potts put _you_ on this?" Kiran said to Fury. "Apparently I need to rethink my opinion of her judgment."

Fury's eyebrows went up. "I see I don't need to introduce myself."

Okay, so that really didn't seem like the right way to start things. "So," Peter said, and gestured to the big black domes that stood out vividly against the landscape. "It's really lucky that you had those things, huh?"

After a pause, Fury shifted his focus. "After the mess in Ethiopia, Stark resurrected some prototypes for containing the Hulk on a rampage," he said. "Potts gave me access when she called me in."

Kiran asked, "Did Stark leave air holes?"

"Not sure. They didn't come with a manual. Now that we're—"

"That's close enough," Kiran said the moment Fury began to take a step. Peter could just barely see a faint blue shimmer hung in the air between them.

Fury's scowl intensified. "You've got a funny way of saying 'thank you'," he said. "Anyone ever tell you that?"

"For what, getting in the way? I had the situation under control."

"Really? Because it looked to me like Spider-Man there was a second away from getting his head blown off!"

(That was also how it had looked to Peter, not that he was going to say it.)

"Believe it or not," Kiran said, "I don't enjoy killing people. I was holding off on using lethal force until the last possible moment."

Fury's chin tilted down slightly. "That almost makes it sound like killing people is something you've tried before."

Blandly, Kiran replied, "Does it?"

"Ant-Man got captured!" Peter said loudly, and thankfully Fury looked his way again. "He was somewhere underneath us looking for the Avengers, but then his radio cut off, and we think he was captured. That's what we're doing here. So someone should go look for him, right? Like, as soon as possible?"

"Any idea _where_ underground?" Fury asked.

"We were pretty sure that the trap door is underneath the building that got blown up." Peter gestured to the giant pile of rubble.

"Swell," said Fury, and looked over his shoulder at the other black-suited people he'd brought with him — one of whom, Peter just realized, was Maria Hill. "Anyone got a broom?"

Kiran also gestured to the debris, and in response, an invisible force swept through like a really specific tornado. It swirled together all the chunks of wood and metal and tossed them away, leaving a bare patch of floor behind. The floor had a trap door in it.

Fury gave Kiran another long, measured look. "That works, too," he said. "You coming?"

"No. Spider-Man can't manage stairs right now, and I'm staying with him."

Peter quickly said, "No, you don't have to—"

"Yes, I do. Come on — let's get you off that leg."

Kiran steered them both around and sent them walking back towards the edge of the compound where the other Peter had dropped them off. With their other hand, Kiran pulled out a phone and started tapping out a text.

It was true that Peter's leg really hurt, and he hadn't been looking forward to all those stairs Ant-Man had mentioned. And, if he let himself think about it, he was maybe feeling a little queasy. He'd just gotten _shot_.

_May is going to freak out when she finds out about this._

Then:

_May is absolutely never finding out about this._

He'd had guns pointed at him tons of times. It had never been a big deal before because… okay, this was a bit mean to say, but it was almost funny how slowly normal humans moved. There was no way, absolutely no way that the average mugger could ever draw a gun, aim it and fire before Peter could dodge and snag it away with a web.

Except that was exactly what the hybrid had done, and he'd done it easily. Without the advantage of his reflexes, Peter felt weirdly naked.

Of course, that could also be from the realization that his suit was just a bunch of electronics sandwiched between layers of fabric. Maybe it was time to talk to Mr. Stark about some kind of armor. Assuming he ever talked to Mr. Stark again.

Okay. Not helpful. To distract himself, Peter shifted his attention to Kiran, who had been fuming ever since Director Fury had showed up. "Hey. So… are you okay? You weren't hurt or anything, were you?"

"Fine. Planning what I'm going to say to Potts when I see her next."

"You worked with Ms. Hill during the portal thing, didn't you?" Peter asked. "While you were waiting for us to get back? So is it just—" he glanced quickly over his shoulder "—is it just _that_ guy you don't like, or…"

Kiran let the two of them drift to a halt. The other Peter's truck was already visible in the distance up ahead, roaring across the desert back to them.

"I'm going to go out on a limb," Kiran said, "and guess that you didn't get your abilities until after SHIELD fell."

"Yeah, that's right, but—"

"Then count yourself lucky. And know that you can't _possibly_ understand what SHIELD used to be to us."

That… was not exactly informative. But something in Kiran's demeanor made Peter reluctant to push any further.

More quietly, Kiran added, "I'm sorry about your leg. I… I'm not used to this."

"It's no big deal. This is barely a scratch. I had way worse things happen on the other planet."

"Peter has first-aid supplies. He'll help you take care of it when he gets here."

Kiran wobbled a little. In spite of his leg, Peter was starting to feel like he was the one holding the two of them up.

"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked again.

Kiran waved a hand at nothing in particular. "I've still got some kind of… something in me from the net. I feel somewhat unwell." In a tone barely above a whisper, they added, "This nearly went quite badly. Don't tell Fury I said that."

The wheels of the truck tossed up bucketsful of sand as the other Peter hit the brakes. He hopped out of the truck and stopped dead, staring at the sight in front of him.

"Um," he said. "I have several questions."

"They'll have to wait," said Kiran. "We fought two hybrids, and Spider-Man was shot."

"Grazed!" Peter said quickly in the face of the other Peter's immediate alarm. "Barely!"

The other Peter blinked a few more times at the rest of the scene — the helicopter, the SHIELD guys sweeping the other buildings, and of course the two black domes where the hybrids were — then refocused on Peter. "Okay," he said. "Okay. Come sit down, and I'll get the first-aid stuff."

Peter limped the last couple of steps and sat down sideways on the back seat. Kiran sort of sank down next to him onto the sand with their back against the wheel.

The other Peter came around the back of the truck holding a first-aid kit, and crouched down next to Peter.

"Are you cool with me doing this?" he asked.

"Yeah, it's fine."

"Sorry, I'm not my husband. I can't make it not hurt."

Peter shook his head and tried to stare at the ceiling of the truck without making it too obvious what he was doing. "It's cool," he said. "I was in battles before, on the other planet. Sometimes you get hurt and you gotta deal with it." _Just a scratch, just a scratch, just don't _look _at it_. "If we'd been in New York, and I'd had ways to climb and to dodge and everything, it would have been a lot easier. But around here… and the hybrids were fast. They were _really_ fast."

"And now they're in those big black bubbles?" the other Peter asked, while doing things that Peter wasn't looking at. "That must have been Director Fury's contribution, I guess."

"Potts', actually," said Kiran.

"Are there air holes?"

"We don't know."

"And Scott? Is he… oh, there he is. Never mind."

Peter turned to look. Scott, full-sized, still in the Ant-Man suit but with the helmet retracted, was just walking up from the trap door. When he caught sight of the group at the truck, he waved and headed over.

"Hey, guys," Scott said. "I hear you tried to rescue me. Thanks."

"What happened?" Kiran asked.

"Basically? The floor swallowed me. The concrete rose up and swept over me, and I got sucked into this little passageway under the floor with a bunch of dirt. There was an air current that blew me all the way out to the end of the tunnel. Like if a central-vac system was ant-sized. It was incredibly weird."

"Are you okay?" the other Peter asked.

Scott shrugged. "Yeah, it was no big deal. But… hey, kid, you're bleeding there."

"We got in a gunfight with the two hybrids who were stationed here," Kiran said. "Incidentally, I assume that you didn't find any Avengers below."

"No. I mean, this whole complex is still a pretty big place, but down there is just the one big empty chamber and a little living space behind it. No place to store a bunch of Avengers. We should still search, obviously, but…"

"But it seems more and more clear that Anna's story was a lie," Kiran said. "Which means, of course, that we have no idea where the Avengers are."

The other Peter finally finished with what he was doing, sat back on his heels, and stripped off his gloves. "You should absolutely get this looked at by someone who knows more than I do," he said to Peter, "but I think it'll be okay for the moment."

"Thanks."

Scott asked, "So what's the plan now?"

Kiran nodded past him. "I'm sure those two have an opinion on that."

It was Director Fury and Maria Hill.

"Everything under control here?" Fury asked.

The other Peter's response was the polar opposite of Kiran's. "Director Fury!" he exclaimed, and hopped to his feet. "It's so wonderful to finally meet you in person! How are your cats?"

Peter blinked in surprise. So did a lot of other people.

"Fine," Fury said.

"Did Gosling like the Ultra Deluxe Ultimate Cat Adventure Playground?"

"Yeah. It was a big hit."

"You have a cat named Gosling?" Peter groped for meaning in a world suddenly turned upside down. "Like… Ryan Gosling?"

Fury fixed him with one steely eyeball. "No."

Maria Hill said, "You bought your cat something called—"

"_As I was about to say_," Fury said sternly to the other Peter, "Potts contacted me shortly after she sent Hogan after you. She wanted me to keep an eye out in case things got out of hand. I can't imagine why."

"Yeah, I'm not surprised," the other Peter said. He pulled a phone from his pocket and started texting as he spoke. "From Pepper's point of view, it makes sense to have a lot of independently moving pieces in play. Director Fury, I'm guessing that your guys are a lot better suited to securing this place than we are. Now that we know for sure that Anna is lying, we can't leave Happy to back up Pepper by himself. I'm warning him right now, but we need to get back there and help."

* * *

_Desert came up empty. Plan C._

Pepper slowly lowered the phone.

(This was the thing about trying to fool an empath. Pepper couldn't actually _know_ anything. Not until certain key moments when a decision would have to be made. All she could do was set events into motion, and hope that they came together roughly according to plan. In this case: plan C.)

Next to her, in the driver's seat of the car, Anna said, "Oh dear. Whatever gave me away?"

"Some friends of mine searched the base."

"Unwise."

"Not as much as you might think," Pepper said as they pulled off the highway. "My friends are fine. Yours are in cages."

"Well," Anna said, and put the car in park. "I'll have to convey my disappointment." They were on a small two-lane road with nothing but sand and scrub to be seen for miles. Which was also part of the plan.

"Where are the Avengers?" Pepper asked.

"Nowhere you could possibly find them. So what happens now?"

"Exactly what you think."

_let me out let me burn let me please let me do this_

_Yes. This time, yes._

* * *

"We need to get back there and help," the other Peter said. But then Director Fury's helicopter exploded.

Peter bounced out of the truck on pure reflex (his leg still burned like crazy), and Kiran scrambled to their feet. Fury and Hill both pulled guns from out of nowhere, not that Peter was really in the mood for more guns.

Then a shadow from overhead, and—

"_Move! Move!_" Peter shouted.

He shoved everyone he could reach away from the truck and just in time because a missile — an actual missile — appeared from literally out of nowhere and smashed into the truck. The force of the explosion blew them all off their feet and bounced the truck high into the air. It crashed down again, mangled and smoking.

"That was a _rental_!" the other Peter wailed.

Peter stared up into the sky. Those shots had come from somewhere, so…

"_And that was my LAPTOP_!"

_There_. The faint shimmer that he recognized as Mr. Stark's retro-reflective panels. (He was never going to forget what _those_ things looked like.) But he'd barely spotted the location before the plane became visible. It was the Avengers' plane — the Quinjet.

Its repulsor engines flared as it settled to the ground. It landed with the back hatch facing them, which Peter hoped meant that most of the weapons were pointing away from them.

The three SHIELD guys that Director Fury and Ms. Hill had brought with them had all come running, of course. They also had their weapons drawn. Along with Fury and Hill, they formed a wide semi-circle around the Quinjet. Every one of them had their weapon trained on the hatch.

And if this was more hybrids, then five people with guns weren't going to mean anything.

Peter took a quick look around him. Kiran was looking wobbly. Whatever the drug from the net was, the effects didn't seem to be wearing off any time soon. The other Peter didn't have powers or weapons. That left Ant-Man, and him.

The hatch slowly opened. All the SHIELD people tensed.

In a million years, Peter never would have guessed who would come walking down the ramp. It was another man who he only recognized because he'd seen him in the news. (Okay, and also he'd heard a lot about him because Mr. Stark hated his guts.)

It was the Secretary of State, Thaddeus Ross.

Kel was walking just behind him. A few steps behind her came a Brenith who Peter had never seen before, with long dark hair and a face that looked a lot younger than Kel's father or any of the other _hirethe_.

Just to Peter's left, the other Peter had calmed down and gone still. Very softly, almost too softly for Peter to hear, he whispered, "Take the plane."

"Director Fury," Secretary Ross said. "It's been too long."

"Secretary Ross," Director Fury responded, a lot more coldly. "This is you? This entire mess is your doing?"

Ross shrugged modestly. "I can't claim to have been the architect, but I'm more than happy to reap the benefits. You know, it's a shame that you and I never had the chance to sit down and hash out our differences over the best direction for the security of this country."

"Ever hear of a phone call?"

"You've become a rather difficult man to track down. Frankly, finding you here is an unexpected bonus. I only expected to net the last of the freaks."

"That was rude," muttered Scott.

"Take the plane," the other Peter breathed again. One of his hands was behind his back. Faintly, Peter could hear his thumb tapping on a screen.

Fury crossed his arms. "Okay, I'll bite. Just what, exactly, do you think you're getting out of this arrangement?"

"How about half of Wakanda's vibranium stores?" Ross said. "How about an overwhelmingly superior military that will be the equal of any conceivable threat, either from within this world or without? We need _strong military allies_, not a collection of undisciplined civilians and children in Halloween costumes."

"That was also rude," muttered Scott.

"Those hybrids killed ten American soldiers!" Fury shot back. "Those were our people! How the hell can you ally yourself with the Brenithi after what they did?"

Tonelessly, Kel said, "A soldier's life is spent to serve their country."

"Exactly," said Ross. "Think of how many lives will be saved the next time an alien army tries to invade, and we fend them off easily thanks to the Brenithi. Wakanda has made it clear that they don't care about anyone but themselves: just look at all the technology they've been hiding from us all these centuries. How many lives could they have saved by sharing their medical advances? And what do they do instead? Offer sanctuary to a war criminal. They can't be trusted, so they have to be controlled."

"I believed in SHIELD," said Fury. "But when I found out about Hydra, I took the whole thing down rather than shake hands with the devil." He jerked his chin to indicate the Brenith on the ramp. "Have you taken a good look at your partners recently? Maybe you should."

"It's too late," Ross said. "Wakanda will fall within the day, and the US-Brenith alliance will be secured. This is the future. You're a useful man, Fury. It's not too late for you to be a part of it."

"Pass," said Fury.

"I wish I could say I was surprised." Ross looked over his shoulder at Kel and the other Brenith. "In that case, I'll just step inside for a moment."

* * *

The car was scattered across the road in many flaming pieces. Pepper spared a distant thought for the insurance rates of whomever Anna had stolen it from.

She generally preferred not to dwell on the details. But in order for her not to experience horrible pain every time she went hot, Extremis had to have completely rewired her nervous system.

Relatedly, Brenith abilities were transmitted through their nerves. Third-degree burns destroyed nerves.

It gave her a fighting chance. It meant that the fire could protect her from Anna's touch, at least for a second or two at a time. It helped, too, that Pepper and Extremis were of one mind. Anna was going to _suffer_.

She'd forgotten. She'd so seldom cut herself free from her self-control. But she was _strong_ like this. Strong and fast. Anna struck with a fist like a sledgehammer, and Pepper let her head rock back. She barely felt it. A gentle warmth suffused her cheek as Extremis shored up the damaged bones.

She punched back. Anna reeled aside, evading the worst of the blow.

_see how much fun we could have been having?_

Pepper had very few clear memories of the rest of the fight. It was like a video game. Or the kind of dream where you're _in_ the video game. Fighting as hard as you can, but at the same time you know that it isn't real and that nothing really matters…

It was Anna's voice that jolted her out of it. "Bad move, Pepper," she said, and looked to her right. "Giving me more targets to play with. Or did you assume you would have finished me by now?"

The other car. That was right. She remembered.

Anna broke right and Pepper moved with her. Happy's car was visible down the road and approaching fast. This was almost over. She just had to…

_Yes_. Anna tried to dodge, but Pepper snagged her wrist and _squeezed_. The fire blazed through her and the air filled with the smells of burning fabric and flesh.

Anna spun back and attacked, and Pepper dumped every scrap of willpower she had into holding on. Nothing else mattered — not the fists hammering into her, and not the empathic attacks Anna was unleashing. Distantly, Pepper was aware of gouges appearing in skin and muscles and organs as Anna strove to maim her every time she healed enough of her skin to make the attempt. But Extremis repaired the damage as quickly as it occurred.

Happy's car screeched to a halt. It was time.

Pepper kicked out and Anna's knee bent backwards, and both of them hit the ground with Pepper on top. She braced her forearm over Anna's throat and thundered, "_Where are the Avengers?_"

Even though she was burnt and bloody, Anna still snarled, "Did you think that was all it would take?"

From behind her, a different voice said, "On the Moon. In a holding facility there."

The look of surprise in Anna's eyes was brief but unmistakable, and Pepper sucked in a sharp breath. She didn't need to look to know who was there. Alisha was a telepath — the only true telepath any of them knew — and, conveniently enough, she was also a Stark Industries employee. Happy's final task had been to bring her here.

Because as much as Pepper had dared to hope, a part of her had always known that Anna was lying, and the only way to get the truth would be to take it from her mind.

"_How_?" she demanded. "How did they get there?"

The defiance was gone from Anna's expression. Instead was the look of concentration of a person who had to learn very quickly how _not_ to think about something.

Not quickly enough. "The Brenithi have a ship," said Alisha. "I know where it is."

Pepper was coming back to herself. The Extremis haze was fading. She had the next step in the plan now, which meant—

Then Anna drove her foot into the pit of Pepper's stomach and kicked her clear. Pepper rolled back to her feet — if Anna wanted to get to Happy or Alisha, she had to go through her first — but Anna didn't try it. Her leg was already healed, and she took off at a dead run in the other direction, picking up speed at an inhuman rate as she went, straight out into the desert.

Pepper started to breathe again.

She wished, in retrospect, that she'd taken some time over the last few years to try to understand Extremis a little better. That very first desperate fight against Killian had been like an out-of-body experience. She'd _done_ things, but without any conscious control over them. The couple of tests she'd done with Tony had seemed similar — loss of control, followed by a desperate scramble to gain it back.

But this fight, in a way, had been easier. A lot of it still hadn't felt like _her_, but it was more like… like she'd called up the fire, then politely averted her eyes while it handled things, and when it was done, it had just as politely stepped back again. Maybe, in time, she could use it without fear of losing herself.

Or maybe Extremis was becoming more cooperative because Pepper was becoming more violent.

"Pepper?"

She gave her head a shake and focused on Happy. "Yes, I'm… Yes."

He was approaching her gingerly with an emergency blanket held open in front of him. "Your, ah… your clothes got a little…"

Pepper looked down. "Oh. Thank you." She accepted the blanket and wrapped it around herself. "Is everyone okay? Alisha?"

"My brain's going to spend the rest of the day trying to kill me," she said, massaging her temples. "I _hate_ doing that. I _told_ you that I didn't want to get involved in something like this again."

"I'm so sorry," said Pepper, "but you were the only one who could have gotten the truth. The _Moon_? Are you sure?"

"Oh, I'm sure. They have security cameras in their facility up there, and that woman had seen some of the footage. The images were very clear in her mind."

"Then the next thing we need to do is find this ship. You're sure you know where to go?"

"The same place she's going," Alisha said. "The SHIELD base in the desert."

"And we'd better hurry," Happy added. "Peter just sent me another text. They're in trouble."

* * *

The Quinjet hatched closed behind Secretary Ross, leaving Kel and the other Brenith alone on the sand.

The moment was surreal. A part of Peter's mind kept asking whether he was really awake, or if this was all a bad dream. Was Kel… was she really… were they actually doing this?

Director Fury said something about standing down. Peter wasn't really listening, and he didn't think the Brenithi were, either. Neither of them were even paying attention to the SHIELD people. The long-haired Brenith was staring past him in Kiran's direction. Kel was staring straight at Peter.

The backup SHIELD guys began advancing, which was _definitely_ a bad idea. Peter started forward too — maybe, just maybe, he could immobilize one of them, and then—

They moved in sync. Of course they did. The long-haired Brenith lunged for the closest SHIELD guy with speed no normal human could match and put him down with a stupid, casual slap across the face, while Kel pulled some kind of metal disk out of her pocket and dropped it onto the sand. The first of the gunshots rang out in response—

And were obliterated by the blaring, blasting siren that lanced into Peter's ears. The frequency flew from piercing to agonizing and he desperately flung his arms up around his head to try and drown it out. A blinding strobe light filled the space at the same time, like the complex was being struck by lightning, over and over. The lenses on his suit automatically darkened until they were nearly opaque, but it wasn't good enough. The light and the sound both came on slightly different patterns each time so he couldn't even prepare for them, and the combined assault paralyzed his brain.

He was helpless. They all were. Kiran couldn't possibly focus their powers like this. It was only a matter of seconds before…

_No_. No, he wasn't giving up. He wasn't going to make it that easy.

Kel and the other Brenith had to be in the same position as the rest of them, sight and hearing overwhelmed. Peter knew that Kel could turn nerves off if she wanted. She must have basically disconnected her eyes and ears, leaving herself to navigate purely by her empathic sense.

Peter knew how she did this. She'd taught him a lot of stuff on the other planet. She carried a mental map in her head of where all the live bodies around her were, and she could fill in other details like buildings once she'd seen them.

She could do that, and Peter could do it too. They'd practiced out in the forest while she'd been teaching him to track: _Look, then close your eyes and remember. If you saw it once, then you can find it again._

The siren was so loud he thought his head might explode, and he could see the brightness of the flare even through his closed eyes and the barrier of his arms. But he had to ignore all that, because he'd seen where the disk landed, which meant that he knew where it was. Just like he knew where Kiran had tossed all the twisted-up shelving units when they'd cleared off the trapdoor.

What he didn't know was where Kel and the other Brenith were. They would try to stop him once they worked out what he was doing. He just had to trust his instincts to keep him out of the way. (_Trust your instincts._ She'd told him that, too.)

The angle was all wrong where he was standing. Peter took off running in the direction that he _knew_ he had to go to make this work. His legs threw him into a dodge before he realized what was happening, and he felt another body go past him — too large to be Kel.

Peter braced himself against the light and the sound, and fired his webs at the stack of debris that he was still tracking in his mind's eye. The tension picked up as they both latched on. He hauled back on both lines with all his strength.

The web in his left hand went slack almost immediately — cut somewhere in the middle — and Peter ducked an instant before a chunk of metal sang past his head. But the other line held. He still had the image of the little disk firmly in his mind — it was kind of under the wing of the Quinjet, he had to get the angle and the distance right — and he swung the piece of debris he'd snagged in a wide arc around his head and slammed it back down again where the disk had to be.

Except maybe he needed a bit more practice with the whole mental map thing, because he only felt the dull impact of metal hitting sand.

_Oops_.

Again his reflexes told him to dodge. This time he vaulted high and somersaulted, and kicked out behind him. The other body dodged and Peter's foot barely glanced off, but whatever — he landed and ran past, and swung the projectile again. This time there was a sharper kind of jolt as it glanced off something.

_Yes!_ Okay, now he had the position locked in for sure. He dodged a few more times just in case, then whirled the chunk of metal over his head and brought it down one more time.

There was a totally satisfying jolt from the other end of the web, and the noise and the strobe light stopped.

Peter took a deep breath, and opened his eyes.

In front of him, all five SHIELD people, including Director Fury and Maria Hill, were down — scattered unconscious on the sand pretty much where they'd been standing when the attack began. Kel was crouched beside Director Fury, searching his pockets.

Behind him, Ant-Man was also down. The sensory overload must have distracted him from changing size for a second, and that was all the other Brenith had needed.

Past Ant-Man were Kiran and the other Peter. They were the only ones besides Peter who were still conscious. Kiran had created some kind of shield of blue energy around them both: a dome a little smaller than the solid black ones that trapped the two hybrids. The long-haired Brenith was crouched right on top of it, hammering on it with his fist. Even through the blue haze, Kiran looked scared and overwhelmed, and the shield shuddered with every blow.

Peter hadn't done too great against the hybrids, and a Brenith was going to be even worse. He needed some way to improve the odds. Maybe something to bargain with.

_Take the plane_, the other Peter had said.

Peter covered the distance between himself and the Quinjet in a couple of leaps. He landed on the nose of the jet, balled up his fist, and slammed it into the windscreen with all his strength.

(He really hoped that Mr. Stark wasn't going to be too upset about him breaking another plane.)

His first try sent cracks spreading out like spiderwebs. His second made a visible dent. And with his third, he knocked the entire right-hand panel out of its frame and onto the control console.

Secretary Ross must have been sitting somewhere in the back. He was shouting something as he came up the short passageway to the cockpit. Peter's hand came up by sheer reflex, and he webbed him to the wall.

(He _webbed_ the _Secretary of State_ to the _wall_. Did that count as treason??)

Whatever. He'd seen the Quinjet before, but he'd never actually been inside it. The front control panel definitely looked wrong, though, even without counting all the broken plexiglass on it. There were a bunch of weird gold tendrils digging into the controls on top and the wiring beneath. The tendrils led out from a rectangular gold panel that definitely did not look like human tech.

Well, that seemed like a good place to start. Peter reached for the closest tendril.

Instinct had him spinning in place just in time to see Kel run up the ramp behind him. Then there was a flash of gold and an invisible fist punched him clean back out the hole in the windscreen.

He cleared the nose of the plane and tumbled across the sand. His head was ringing again and his entire body ached. That stupid force field of hers was ridiculously strong.

(Kiran and Peter were still okay, but the Brenith was still attacking Kiran's shield.)

Kel stepped through the windshield and out onto the nose of the plane, and casually hopped down.

That was about when Peter realized that he was absolutely _furious_.

"You were our friend!" he snarled as he climbed back to his feet. "How can you do this to us? You know what your problem is? You're a _coward_. You're too scared to even face me without that shield, aren't you? Just hiding behind your father's tech, because you know that if it was just you? You could never even touch me. You're _pathetic_."

Kel's expression got a little harder.

She was wearing a black jacket made of something like canvas, and it had gold designs on the collar and the wrists. Slowly, she reached up to the collar and pinched one of the gold loops. Then she shrugged the jacket off her shoulders and tossed it to one side.

The shirt she was wearing underneath was sleeveless. On her upper arm, she still had one of the scars from when she'd been captured and nailed to a rock wall on Venen-ka. And she had lots of other scars besides that one — deliberate ones, that Peter knew were from battles and other important events in her life.

She turned her wrist and a dagger appeared in her hand. Then she pointed at the other Brenith and barked some kind of order in z'Brel. Peter really hoped that the order translated as 'Stay there and don't interfere'.

Then her head tilted, daring him to make a move.

Oh, he had moves. He was closer to the debris pile than he had been before, and this time he could see what he was doing. Like he'd done before, he fired both webshooters and snagged two chunks of metal, and sent them both whirling her way.

The webs were elastic, of course, which made the range difficult to guess by sight. Kel ducked low beneath the first swing, and had to throw herself into a roll to evade the second. Peter leaned back against the force on the lines and swung both of them around again.

(He was trying not to think about the fact that the torn-off chunks of metal were sharp enough to cut her throat, if not take her head off.)

Kel closed range and slashed with her knife, and cut one of the webs as it went by. But Peter still had the faster reaction time: he adjusted his aim with the second one before Kel could evade again, and it smacked right into her arm as she brought it up to cover her head.

The edges were sharp and Peter wasn't holding back. Kel staggered to one side and blood welled up. A lot of blood, if only for a second before the wound healed.

Peter really wasn't sure how things would have gone after that. But they were interrupted from finding out when someone new arrived on the scene: a blonde woman who sort of looked like she'd recently been pulled from a burning building.

She came running onto the compound at an amazing speed, ignored Peter and his friends completely, and called to Kel, "New orders. Leave them."

"What orders?" Kel demanded.

The woman snagged Kel's jacket from off the ground and tossed it to her. "If you didn't disconnect your comms, you'd know. Let's go, we've got to move."

"Careful, human," Kel said stiffly. "I don't answer to you."

"Do you answer to the _ti-hireth_? Move!" The woman crouched by Director Fury for a moment and found what Kel must have been searching for earlier: a remote control. A press of a button, and the two black domes retracted, freeing the hybrids.

"All teams fall back!" the new woman shouted. "New deployments to be announced back at base!" Then she ran up the ramp into the Quinjet. More distantly, Peter heard her add, "Who the hell glued the Secretary to a wall?"

Not one of the enemy team protested any further. They all followed the new woman up the ramp, and soon the jet was lifting off. Peter felt a little stupid about just letting them go… but he couldn't possibly stop them from leaving by himself, and frankly he liked them _gone_ a lot better than he liked them _here_.

The Quinjet had barely left the ground when another car came tearing across the desert. It skidded to a halt and tossed up sand just like every arriving car seemed to do.

Happy stepped out of the driver's seat. Alisha, who was one of Jean's friends who had lived with them on Venen-ka, got out of the back.

And from the front passenger side came Ms. Potts, who _also_ looked like she'd recently been pulled from a burning building. Or maybe that she'd recently burned a building down — it was hard to tell.

Kiran had let the shield down, and was helping the other Peter dust himself off. Alisha was already heading in their direction.

Peter focused on Happy and Ms. Potts.

"Hi," he said, because he couldn't think of another way to start. "What's going on?"

Ms. Potts paused a moment to survey the battlefield. Then she said, "Someone wake up Fury. We have to go to the Moon."


	17. Chapter 17

Someone woke up Fury. Pepper repeated her plan.

"The Moon," he said. "_Our_ Moon?"

"That's right," Pepper said, and hoped that he couldn't tell how loudly her heart was thumping in her ears.

"Hate to break it to you, but I left my spaceship in my other jacket."

"That's fine," she replied. "According to my source, the Brenithi left theirs at the bottom of the ravine."

Fury's eye went a little wider, like he'd just that moment realized that she was serious. "Now, hold on a second—"

But there was no holding on and there were no seconds. Not in this precarious moment when the enemy's plan had been set back on its heels and there was a chance, a narrow window, to regain the upper hand. Pepper looked to her right and asked, "Scott, would you like to help me steal an alien spaceship?"

Scott paused in the process of knocking sand out of one of his boots and said, "You know, I'd just like to mention that I do have other personality traits besides the whole theft thing. For example, I have a daughter Cassie — she's fantastic, she's the best thing that ever happened to me — I have a generally basically amicable relationship with my ex, I'm _Ant-Man_—" he held up the boot for emphasis "—which is kind of a big deal, and I would love to help you steal an alien spaceship, Ms. Potts. Thank you for asking."

"Good," Pepper said, and turned again. "Happy, I need you to—"

"Excuse me?" Fury said loudly. "Is anyone going to fill me in on _why_ you're going to the Moon?"

"Because the Avengers are in a holding facility there."

He blinked. "They're in a…"

"Yes."

"On the _Moon_?"

"Apparently so."

"And the source of this intel is…"

"Anna's mind."

"Oh good. Here I thought it might have been something unreliable. Pepper—"

"Happy, I need you to take our friends back home," Pepper said. "Obviously I can't say how long I'll be gone, but I'll be in touch as soon as—"

"_Potts_!" Fury snapped. "You _can't_… All right. Say you find the ship. Say you get inside it. Say you get it off the ground. You got a lot of experience with spaceflight? You can't just plug the Moon into your GPS. But sure, let's say you reach the Moon, and let's even say you locate this facility, even though I hear the Moon is a pretty big place. What are you going to do when you trip one of the security systems you didn't know about and the entire team gets jettisoned into space?"

It was amazing, really, how many people seemed to think that Pepper could run Stark Industries without developing the habit of thinking through all the possible consequences of her actions.

"We'll have time to break into the onboard computer and figure out the controls and security measures before we get there," she replied, "and if it comes to that, Wanda can create a force field to keep in the air for a few minutes."

"Just that simple, huh."

Happy asked, "Does 'our friends' include the kid?"

"Yes, of course."

"No," Peter said immediately. "_No_. Ms. Potts, I understand it's risky, but I came here because I want to help Mr. Stark and the others, and there's no way I'm giving up and going home now. That's not gonna happen. So please don't make me stow away on your spaceship, because I will one hundred percent stow away on your spaceship." He crossed his arms, and the Spider-Man mask radiated defiance. "Besides, if the ship is really at the bottom of the ravine, then you're going to need my help getting to it."

"Kid, what do you expect me to say to a certain Aunt—" Happy changed course at the last second at Peter's frantic gestures "—Aunt Spider-Man when she asks where you've gone?"

"You can just say I'm helping to find Mr. Stark and, you know, be a little vague about the details?"

"And five seconds later when that stops working? She'll kill me!"

"No, she won't," Peter said. "She likes you."

"Really?" Happy stood a little taller. "What did she say, exactly?"

"You know, I've changed my mind," Fury said, massaging his forehead. "Go to the damned Moon. All of you."

"I think I'll come, too, if you've got a spare seat," Maria said. At Fury's look, she added, "What? It's the Moon. I've never been."

Fury turned back to Pepper one last time and said, "This is an all-or-nothing play. You better be sure."

Pepper was already looking past him, to the ravine that six years ago had swallowed people, equipment and buildings. A lot of suffering had gotten its start in this place. It was time for the tide to turn.

"I'm sure."

* * *

Secretary Ross was cut free from the Quinjet bulkhead, and took a seat in the rear compartment with as much dignity as he could muster while he still had spiderwebs hanging off his suit.

It was worth noting that he was not the only passenger who was displeased with recent events. Anna and Kel were both in the rear compartment with him, sitting across from each other and eyeing each other with matched expressions of derision. Gath, the Brenith, was piloting the ship, and the other two hybrids who had been stationed at the SHIELD base sat next to Anna.

"Well," Anna said, and smiled at Kel with brittle sarcasm. "That operation was quite the catastrophe, wasn't it?"

"Because _you_ interrupted," Kel said, just as cuttingly. "Very kind of you to share your failure."

"I was particularly interested to find Spider-Man there," Anna continued as if she hadn't spoken, "after you were so eager to convince us that he posed no threat."

Kel grimaced. "Yes. Unexpected. The businesswoman must have brought him."

"And not only was he in the fight, but he looked like a match for you."

"Really," Kel said. "Then I think you watched a different fight than I did."

"He goaded you into lowering your defenses, then proceeded to beat the shit out of you. Enlighten me — what nuance did I miss?"

"An obvious attack that did no damage," she sneered. "I wanted to see if the child could try to kill me. He can't. He still thinks he can win a war but not kill the enemy. It means he's not a serious threat. And I wonder if you talk about the child so much because you _don't_ want to talk about how badly you lost to the businesswoman. You said you could trick her. You failed. She defeated your plan and she defeated you in combat. It was _pathetic_." She leaned back in the narrow jumpseat and folded her arms, and her derisive look expanded to include the other two hybrids who sat next to Anna. "I watch this project for a year. Still I wait to see it produce anything useful."

Anna gave no indication that the comment had rankled. Her companions weren't so calm. The male hybrid lunged from his seat and snarled, "Watch your mouth, you—"

Ross flinched by reflex and didn't see the blow land. He only heard the ringing _clang_ of a fist striking metal, joltingly loud even over the dull roar of the engines.

When he looked back, there was a dent in the fuselage behind Kel's head, and her hand was locked around the hybrid's wrist.

The scene seemed to freeze. It took Ross a moment to realize that they _were_ frozen: the hybrid's immense advantage in strength was rendered irrelevant by Kel's touch.

Slowly, the hybrid's knees began to buckle. Kel leaned forward over him as he sank to the ground. "_Control._ _Your. Impulses._"

Anna, looking bored, leaned forward to grab the hybrid by the back of his collar and tossed him back into his seat. "Are you done embarrassing yourself?" she asked him. "Honestly, Gen Four has been one disappointment after the next."

The man muttered something under his breath, but didn't challenge her.

Anna settled back into her own seat and refocused on Kel. "It's a very good show," she said. "And yet somewhat unpersuasive. You'd like us to believe that you're perfectly sanguine about betraying all your friends, but for me the act rings hollow. No qualms of conscience? No second thoughts? Not even one little backup plan?"

"I know humans for a long time," Kel said, "and the thing that I will never understand is how much time you take to _talk_ about your _feelings_. I had this for months from Stark — 'I can't do this job right now because I'm sad about a different thing that happened five years ago!'" She scoffed. "I am _shorath_, and I follow my orders. How do I feel? _Correct_. But you continue to watch me, human. Maybe you'll learn something."

"Ladies," Ross said, once he was reasonably sure that the show was over. "We seem to have left a job unfinished back there. Why did Kith pull us out?"

"I don't have the details yet," said Anna, "but it has something to do with Wakanda. The _ti-hireth_ has found something there. Something that will guarantee that all the Avengers' future efforts are irrelevant."

Ross liked the sound of that. "As long as he plans on sharing it."

"Of course, Mister Secretary. We're partners."

* * *

Thor recalled with a certain fondness the simpler days when his greatest worry was his brother's attempt to invade the Earth. As it turned out, they'd _both_ missed the truth of ruling. It was mostly paperwork.

The undercurrent of political strife in Wakanda was growing as the movement to have Asgard's sanctuary revoked gained momentum. The United Nations inspection had begun, which was surely an ongoing insult to King T'Challa's pride. The Avengers were still missing. The Brenith scheme, though still unclear, seemed to be progressing essentially unchecked.

But Thor couldn't afford to care about any of those things, because he had to prepare for the harvest.

This region of the planet had a generous growing season, and Wakanda's agricultural techniques were advanced, at least by Midgardian standards. These factors allowed for two harvests per year. It was critical for New Asgard's progress toward self-sufficiency that they take full advantage of both.

Thor was still coming to grips with just how much land and labor it took to support a farming community of four hundred — and this alongside the task of building their homes. Construction would have to be suspended very soon so that every labor hour could be put toward the harvest and the second planting that would follow.

The farming teams who walked the fields daily had compiled estimates for the expected yields of their various grain and vegetable crops. Alongside that, the cooks had kept tallies of the supplies they'd used over the past six months. In order for New Asgard to reduce its dependence on food donations from Wakanda, Thor had to determine exactly which—

"There you are, brother," Loki said as he swept into Thor's cabin without knocking. "I've been meaning to talk to you about a minor matter that…"

Thor looked up when Loki failed to complete his sentence. "What?"

He wasn't sure if he had ever seen his brother make that particular expression before. It was somehow equal measures of amused, baffled and horrified.

Loki asked, "_What_ are you doing?"

Thor looked down at the papers on the desk before him (a ridiculously primitive system, yes, but frankly the computers were little better). "I'm tabulating the projected yields from our first harvest to see if we'll need to reapportion our crop lands for the next…" He trailed off as Loki's look of incredulity deepened. "_What_?"

"You're tabulating."

"Yes."

"I didn't know you could tabulate."

Thor sighed and set down his pencil. "What minor matter?"

Loki opened his mouth, then closed it again. "No, I'm sorry," he said, and began to back away. "I interrupted your tabulating. Clearly you have more important matters to address. I'll come back later. When I can possibly take you seriously."

* * *

Rhodes was sitting at the table in the corner with his back to the wall and a clear view of the only door. The cafeteria was empty except for him. Obviously there weren't too many guests of the Royal Palace in residence at the moment.

"How did it go?" Barnes asked, and Rhodes nearly spat out his coffee.

"Where the hell did you come from?"

"Brooklyn," Barnes said, and settled into the chair across from him.

Rhodes felt his jaw go slack. _Was that a joke?_

Barnes just watched him, deadpan as ever, and Rhodes gave his head a quick shake. Right. Down to business.

"I crashed the UN team breakfast," he said. "Tried to make some friends and sniff out some imposters. If there's an alien infiltrator on the team, I don't think it's any of the scientists. Every one of them has at least one other one who'll claim to have been working together for a decade or more. No way the Brenithi could have made a switch. I guess one of them could be the genuine article who got themselves hybridized… but I can't figure a motive."

"Who does that leave?"

"Security and support staff. The security folks weren't as talkative, but my guess is they were hired from the private sector. Someone on that team could easily be a stranger to the others — sudden illness, last-minute reassignment, that sort of thing. Or there's the three secretaries, and we know they can be infiltrated because one of them actually works for Wakanda. Take your pick." He knocked back the last of his coffee and set his mug down on the tray. "How about you?"

After T'Challa had brought them in on this problem, they'd each come up with tasks that suited their respective skills. Rhodes took the social event, and Barnes took the stealth mission.

"Perimeter security on the shield generation facility is solid," said Barnes.

"Solid enough to keep you out?"

If Barnes had gone in for facial expressions, this one would have been wounded pride. "I reached the roof," he said. "To get inside, I would have had to break things. Main problem with most security systems: they don't expect an intruder who can jump a twenty-foot fence. I sent General Okoye some notes."

Rhodes wondered how General Okoye felt about some white guy horning in on her territory. Then again, Sergeant Barnes was beloved by all Wakanda, so maybe it wasn't an issue.

"Okay," he said. "Next moves, then. I can keep an eye on the UN team, and you can do your lurking in the shadows thing around the shield generator. Unless you've got an idea for a more direct approach."

Barnes was still for a long moment, just staring blankly through Rhodes' empty lunch plate. Eventually, he said, "Run the story again."

"The story?"

"The aliens' plan. What we think it is."

"What, from the top?" Granted, it was a complicated story. Rhodes frowned as he tracked back to the first link in the chain. "Okay. The Brenithi figure out how to splice their DNA into humans. They create a bunch of hybrids, then turn them loose to cause trouble. Playing the injured party in public lets them plant their mole on the Avengers, and by some trick that I sure as hell haven't figured out yet, she takes most of the team down.

"Then comes round two. The Brenithi whip up some fake evidence to frame Wakanda for the hybrids. The resulting political pressure forces T'Challa to give this inspection team access to parts of Wakanda that would normally be protected by the energy shield. T'Challa's best guess is that the goal is to sneak a saboteur inside who'll take out the shield and leave the country wide open to alien invasion, and I don't have a better idea."

Rhodes waited. Barnes didn't break from his still-life impression.

Finally, he had to ask, "Well?"

Barnes blinked. "What?"

"Did that shake something loose for you?"

It took Barnes a while, just like every time he had to string more than a few words together.

"Wakanda's shield," he said after a long pause. "It's the literal thing, but it's also… everyone else. The planet. Say the shield goes down. Do the aliens put it on the hybrids? If they do that, then immediately invade, it's obvious they were behind it all in the first place. Earth would fight back."

Rhodes sat back and steepled his fingers. He had to admit, he hadn't thought about it from exactly that angle. "Everything the Brenithi have done so far has been about covering their true objectives," he said. "So if they stay true to form, you're saying they need an invasion plan that doesn't look like an invasion plan. Tall order." This time Barnes' expression definitely changed, and Rhodes asked again, "What?"

"The inspection team," Barnes said. "Not just cover for an infiltration. An excuse." He paused, and something in his eyes grew harder. "Kill 'em. Make it look like Wakanda did it to cover up evidence. That's what I would do."

(So there _were_ some fragments of the Winter Soldier still in there.)

"Okay," Rhodes said slowly. "Kill them how?"

"The hybrid who planted the bomb in New Asgard got it from a Wakandan weapons cache," said Barnes. "And I hear there were a lot more weapons where that one came from. If the target is just a group of people, one grenade is enough."

The whole thing sounded scarily plausible. Rhodes wished it didn't.

"So we've still got an intruder," he said, "but now we're waiting for him to either sneak off and blow up the generator, or stay put and blow up his own team. Terrific. We need to figure out who the hell this guy is and fast."

"Won't be easy. Whatever we try, he'll see us coming."

That was a problem, all right. The hybrids were ambush-proof. It put a serious crimp in their tactical options.

Then again…

Rhodes found himself thinking back to a crowded theater, not so long ago. How almost everyone had been taken by surprise when the Hulk had dropped in on them but a few people hadn't.

"You're right," he said. "We can't take the hybrid by surprise. He'll see us coming. And maybe that's the point."

It only took Barnes a second to catch on. "T'Challa won't like it."

"No, I'll bet he won't."

"Can't do it in the city. Too much risk to civilians if the target breaks containment."

"Then I guess it's lucky I snagged a copy of the inspection team's itinerary at breakfast."

* * *

"Do you think Ursula and George are all right?" Wanda asked.

"Yeah, I'm sure they're good," Sam replied. "Tony had the whole compound pretty well automated — food delivery, clean-up. Shouldn't be a problem for a few days."

"I hope you're right. Ursula gets grumpy when she hasn't eaten."

The thought of a giant cheetah with six paw's worth of claws and more teeth than it knew what to do with getting _grumpy_ was not a pleasant one. However — unforeseen perk of being trapped on the Moon — it wasn't Sam's problem to handle.

"Hello," Jean said from the doorway, in a tone that wasn't particularly pleased. That was reasonable: Sam and Wanda had occupied her room and her cot without an invitation. More specifically, they'd been lurking in Sam's room across the hall for over an hour, waiting for Jean to leave so that they could sneak their way in.

"Hey," Sam said, and gave a friendly wave of his arm. "Come on in, have a seat."

"How kind." With a faint grimace of annoyance, Jean settled herself between them. "To what do I owe the visit?"

"You're moping," Sam said. "We're the counter-moping squad."

"I don't suppose it occurred to you that, in this tiny habitat with no doors and no diversions, I might simply want the illusion of some time to myself?"

"Naw, this isn't a privacy thing, this is a moping thing. I can tell the difference. I'm a professional."

Steve had tried. He really had. But the team could only be distracted by party games and casual conversation for so long while an alien invasion was happening under their noses. Morale was in a downward spiral, and tempers were starting to fray. Sam and Wanda had joined forces earlier that day, having identified each other as having the highest level of resistance to moping and sniping.

Sam waited through Jean's predictably pained sigh, then asked, "You want to talk about it?"

"Truthfully? No. Not at all." After a pause in which she seemed to be settling an internal debate, Jean added, "However, it's possible I could use some counter-moping tips. You're both coping with the situation rather well. How did you manage it?"

"There's some perks," he said, and pointed back at himself. "First Black man on the Moon. Bet you didn't see that one coming."

That startled a chuckle out of her. "Yes, I suppose," Jean said. "And if I'm not mistaken, I'm the first Asian, and we have a three-way tie for first woman. Historically, this neighborhood has shown a shocking lack of diversity."

Sam grinned back. "And maybe more the sort of thing you're looking for is, we've got friends back home who are working the problem. That's what having a team is about. Their job is to get us out of this, and our job is to keep it together until they do. I'm not saying this is my idea of a good time, but treating it like a job helps me handle it."

Jean hummed quietly in response.

The attention in the room shifted Wanda's way. After a bit of silence, she said, "When my brother and I were children, we were trapped for two days in the ruins of a collapsed building next to our parents' dead bodies and an unexploded missile. Compared with that… this place isn't so bad."

"Ah." Jean's chin dipped. "I am suitably chagrined."

"I didn't mean it like that," Wanda said quickly. "In fact, I think I owe you an apology. For Loki. I'm pretty sure he found us here because of me. I was trying to contact Vision, but the Stones… when they're close together, I think they can affect each other."

"That's hardly your fault," Jean said quickly. "Now we know that he has this weapon, and it's possible that he hasn't realized that we know. I'll take that scenario over the alternative."

"That's part of the problem, I suppose," Wanda said. "We won't be stuck here forever. I can feel that much." She looked at Jean with understanding in her eyes. "The hard part will be the things we have to deal with when we get back."

"Yes," Jean said quietly. She leaned her head back. "There will be many things to deal with."

Pushing probably would have resulted in another deflection, so instead Sam stayed quiet. Eventually, his patience was rewarded.

"Have you ever considered how a society of empaths would have to function?" Jean asked.

"Can't say as I have," Sam replied.

"It's important to remember that they aren't true empaths in the Star Trek sense. It's more a perception of physical sensation."

Sam remembered. Kel had shared the inside of her head with him once, and it had been like having a body that was a hundred yards in diameter. She got to listen in on every nervous system in her range — and Sam was pretty sure she'd been downplaying that range so that his brain didn't overload.

"j'Brenithi retain a lot of their solitary predator instincts," Jean continued, sounding like she'd run through this recitation before. "They seldom congregate in large numbers. Even a small city by American standards would be considered unbearably crowded. But a technologically sophisticated society can't develop without some degree of cooperation, so they've clearly found ways to tolerate working in groups. Emotional control, then, would become their version of tact. Just like adult humans generally learn not to verbalize every thought that crosses their mind, adult j'Brenithi would learn to suppress… I don't know, an adrenaline burst from a fright, or a blush of embarrassment. Perhaps even pupil responses. And, correspondingly, I would bet that they aren't perfect lie detectors. They can fool each other."

The general assumption was that the prisoners were being monitored — certainly video, and maybe audio. "Should we be talking about this?" Sam asked quietly.

Jean shook her head. "I don't mean Kel. I already know how that story ends. It's a different scenario. A hypothesis I'd like to test when we get back."

Sam privately had some doubts. Jean _had_ to be wondering whose side Kel was really on, right? If there was still a chance that she was only playing along with her people because she had to?

But if the only way they could talk around that was to theorize about Brenith sociology, Sam was game.

"So you figure that—"

"You're _unbelievable_!" came Tony's voice from down the hall.

"You're blowing this way out of proportion!" Steve's voice retorted.

(Jean, at least, was keeping her temper in spite of the stress. And then there were Steve and Tony.)

"Out of proportion? Out of _proportion_? You _stole_—"

"I did _not steal_—"

"You _stole my rice cake_!"

Jean groaned and covered her eyes with her hand.

"_I did not steal your_— it was left on the couch, there was no one here—"

"So you're admitting it!"

"It was _garbage_, and I _recycled_ it!"

"It was _not_ garbage, I was experimenting with the nanites and—"

"Well, don't do experiments in the living room!"

"Oh, you're the Lunar Landlord now? Great, because I have a list of zoning violations that—"

"So if this fight were happening on j'Brenn," Sam said, "you're saying they'd still be yelling at each other, but they'd be keeping their heart rates down?"

Jean shook her head, obviously more in response to Tony's imaginary lunar bylaws than to Sam's question. "In this gravity, I assume that neither of them can muster the force to actually damage each other, right?"

"Probably not," Sam said. "And if they want to try, they're grown-ass men and it's not your job or mine to supervise them like kindergarteners."

"I suppose we all have our ways of—"

"If the two of you gotta howl like banshees, could you not do it in the middle of the night?" Clint had joined the fray.

"What do you mean, middle of the night?" Tony retorted. "An hour ago it was lunch!"

"Do you see a sun in that sky? I don't see a sun. Know why? Because we're on the fucking _Moon_! The whole _thing's_ the middle of the night!"

"Okay," Jean said, and pushed herself off the cot. "I believe the term from physics is 'critical mass'."

They made their little low-grav hops down the hallway into the living room. Natasha was sitting on one of the couches, looking as annoyed as the rest of them felt. The three grown-ass kindergarteners in question were in a ring in the middle of the room. The sunless sky and the bleak lunar landscape were almost starting to look normal in the window behind them.

The argument trailed off as Jean crossed her arms and put on her best Boss-Lady face.

"Really?" she said.

Tony jerked his head in Steve's direction and said, "He started it."

"Are you _five_?" Steve demanded. "I did not— _He_ started it!"

"All right," said Jean. "I recognize that the arguments provide a temporary form of stress relief, but it is coming at the expense of everyone who has to listen to you. Find a better way to cope!"

"You know what?" Tony said. "No. _No_. I'm done being reasonable, and I'm done _coping_, and you know why? Because I haven't been coping with this shit for three days, I've been coping with it for _years_. This isn't the first time I've been stolen off the face of the Earth, this isn't the first time I've faced down an invading alien army, this isn't the first time I've been backstabbed by someone I trusted, and hell, when we get back, it won't even be the first time I have to—" there was a hitch when he and Jean met each other's eyes "—to fight someone I thought was a friend. I've done _all of this shit before_! And I _coped_ with it, and now I'm done! I hereby declare this to be Tony Stark's Island of Not Coping, and if anyone doesn't like it, they can—"

"Well. This is awkward."

Sam jolted in surprise and wound up doing a clumsy one-eighty spin in the air. Loki was standing in the hallway behind him.

"Why are you here again?" Steve asked. "You're obviously not planning to take us back to Earth."

"That would tip my hand to the Brenithi, wouldn't it?" said Loki. "We can't have that. But perhaps I can bring you one step closer."

He took a dramatic step to the side, and revealed _another_ visitor coming down the hallway behind him. (For a prison on the Moon, this place was getting a lot of foot traffic.)

The new arrival was a young woman, maybe not even out of her teens, with tightly braided black hair. Sam was pretty sure he'd seen her face before, but he couldn't quite place it.

As her last hop landed her in the living room, she crowed, "This place is awesome!"

"No, it's really not," Sam said.

"I keep telling my brother that Wakanda needs its own space program! _We_ could have built a place like this!"

Sam clued in just before Tony said, "_Shuri_?"

"Hi, Tony," she said. "Nice to see you again. So _this_ is where you've all been. How did you get here?"

"We still don't know," said Tony.

"Not the same way _you_ did, that's for sure," Sam said. "Did he ask first before he swooped you up?"

"Please," Loki sniffed. "I don't abduct children. Princess Shuri and I are acting in concert."

"And I left a message for T'Challa that he'll get if I'm gone more than an hour," Shuri said. She trailed her fingers along the wall with evident fascination. "But I love this place! A little inconvenient for you, of course, but the tech is great! Automated air circulation and temperature regulation, nanites to run maintenance and to recycle water and organic matter. Are they in all the surfaces, or just the walls and floor?"

"I'm not sure," Tony said. "Someone interrupted my experiment. Also, what the hell is happening right now?"

Shuri had a canvas bag slung over her shoulder. She broke off her examination of the wall and pulled out a stylus and a tablet with scrolling Wakandan characters.

"Loki told me that you've all been infected by nanites," she said. "I'm here to see if I can get them out."

"You're welcome," Loki said.

* * *

The savanna plains outside Birnin Zana weren't actually typical of the country's geography. Considerably more of it consisted of jungles or mountain ranges. That afternoon, the UN team was scheduled to inspect one of Wakanda's biotech research facilities, which was located deep in the jungle to the north of the capital. The drive there and back passed through some seriously unfriendly terrain.

It was, Rhodes and Barnes agreed, the perfect place to stage an accident. Or to stage a _staged_ accident. Whatever.

Logically, if the team was going to be killed for discovering something they shouldn't have, they had to reach their destination and inspect things first. Rhodes spent a tense hour surveilling the two passenger vans as they wended their way down the jungle roads — since he had to stay out of range of the hybrid, he had only an outside chance of reaching them if something did go wrong — but they made the trip without incident.

Then came a long wait while the inspecting happened. Barnes wasn't the guy to fill the air waves with unnecessary conversation. Their vigil was spent in silence.

Then, finally, word came through that the team was on its way back. It was go time.

Ambushes had been a part of warfare since the concept had been invented, which meant that every military organization in history had had to confront the human startle response. Soldiers could be trained to channel their surprise into the "fight" half of fight-or-flight, but no one ever suppressed it completely. If you knew what you were looking for, there was a clear difference between someone snapping into action in response to a threat and someone who'd already known that the threat was coming.

And there were few sights more threatening or more surprising than the Winter Soldier in full gear, stepping out into the middle of the road and putting a couple of rifle rounds through the windshield of your van.

(As predicted, T'Challa had been _deeply_ unhappy at the thought of ambushing his guests, never mind firing on them. Rhodes and Barnes had only cleared their plan with him by a hair.)

Feeds from the two vans' hidden internal cameras were displayed on Rhodes' HUD. The scientists all showed genuine signs of panic. So did all but one of the support staff; the exception, who after a split-second of cool-eyed calculation did a very good job of faking it, had to be T'Challa's spy. That left the security teams.

Rhodes and Barnes had agreed that this was the most likely scenario. Per the plan, Rhodes focused on the second van and scanned each face, searching for the false notes.

The two vans screeched to a halt. T'Challa hadn't allowed any of the visitors to carry weapons, which meant that five out of the six security personnel had to know that they were as good as dead. They sprang from the vans and took cover behind the open doors. Rhodes could see them shouting at Barnes to stand down.

"Front vehicle, driver's side rear door," Barnes said on coms, and without waiting for confirmation, he shifted his aim and took a headshot.

Thank God he was right. The hybrid — a short, wiry guy in his thirties — jerked his head to one side and the bullet missed.

That was Rhodes' cue. He flexed his wrists and the repulsors lifted him into the air. This wasn't the backup flight system from his braces. T'Challa had loaned him a full-fledged Black Panther-style vibranium suit that the Wakandan design team had merged with Tony's repulsor tech. He had to admit — no offense to Tony — it was the Cadillac of armor.

The road through the jungle followed a river before it climbed to the top of a rocky ridge. A plummet down the side of a cliff seemed like the perfect fake accident waiting to happen, which was why Barnes had stopped the van just before the climb. The river was a murky, slow-moving thing that Rhodes sure as hell wouldn't have wanted to jump into without protective gear, but he wasn't a hybrid and he wasn't facing the Winter Soldier. The hybrid hit the water, and Rhodes followed him in.

The HUD automatically shifted to IR, easily tracking the hybrid even through the clouded water. It didn't matter how strong he was — no way could he swim faster than Rhodes' repulsors could propel him. Rhodes caught up a second later, snagged him by the ankle, and flew them both out of the river and up the cliff.

The hybrid doubled himself up midair and tried to pry his ankle free from Rhodes' hand, but T'Challa's vibranium-infused nanotech was smart enough to form up rigidly against the attack. Rhodes barely felt the pressure. Trees and rocks whooshed past until he reached the top of the cliff, where he dropped the hybrid in the prearranged spot.

T'Challa was waiting. He hadn't gotten a piece of the hybrid who'd bombed New Asgard. Rhodes guessed that he was about to release some pent-up frustration.

Barnes seemed to scale the cliff as quickly as Rhodes had flown. He pulled himself up to the top of the rocks just as Rhodes dropped down for a landing. The hybrid ignored both of them, though, and focused on the king.

T'Challa was in full Black Panther armor. He popped back his helmet.

"You and your kind will cause no more trouble for my country," T'Challa said. "This is your one chance to surrender peacefully."

"They didn't pick us because we surrender peacefully," the hybrid said, and tossed a grenade.

They'd planned for this. Rhodes and Barnes rushed in to keep the hybrid from escaping while T'Challa threw himself on the grenade.

The hybrid tried to leap, but Rhodes could fly. They clashed ten feet in the air as a muffled _bang_ sounded from beneath them. Rhodes threw himself into a barrel roll before he tossed the hybrid back to Earth.

Below him, T'Challa's suit was glowing purple with energy. The instant the hybrid landed, Barnes hopped back over the cliff's edge for cover, and T'Challa went full superhero pose and punched the ground. A circular shockwave blasted outward as the energy he'd stored from the grenade was released again. The hybrid had no time to dodge or to brace, and the blast sent him tumbling deeper into the trees.

Right into T'Challa's traps. There was a crackle of energy and a couple metallic clangs, then stillness.

The three men regrouped and closed in. They found the hybrid with his wrists and his ankles bound in vibranium-reinforced cuffs. Quite a bit of the attitude had dropped off his face.

T'Challa stood over the hybrid, and Rhodes wondered for a second if he was going to slug the guy while he was down. But then he turned his back and said to Rhodes and Barnes, "General Okoye will be here shortly to collect the prisoner. Afterwards, I would like to make my apologies to the UN inspectors in person. I imagine they will be very interested to hear this man's story."

* * *

It was somewhat later in the seemingly endless lunar nighttime. Tony's palm still stung a little from whatever it was Shuri had done. She'd assured them all that they were now nanite-free; Tony had hopped up to a light fixture, like he'd done that first night, and sure enough, he'd been able to poke around in the alcove without getting put to sleep. Then Loki and Shuri had vanished through another hole in space.

(Of course it was the Tesseract. Of _course_ it was. Tony had known it the instant Loki had summoned the portal. You never forgot your first.)

Removing the nanites was a good step. A critical step. But only useful once they got back to Earth. Having that particular solution delivered to their doorstep only seemed to emphasize how helpless they all were as long as they were stuck.

Tony was standing at the window, staring at the pitted, rocky surface outside, and had been for some time. The Earth, always present in the sky, was waning.

Steve had joined him a while back. Neither of them had said a word. The surprise visit by Loki had knocked them both out of bickering mode. Though Steve still owed him a rice cake.

It was, fundamentally, a boring view. Nothing moved, nothing changed.

At least, that was normally the case. But this was not shaping up to be a normal day.

"Hey, Tony?" Steve said.

"Yeah, Steve?"

"Is that a spaceship?"

"Yeah. Pretty sure it is."

"And is that Pepper in the window of the spaceship?"

"Yeah. Pretty sure it is."

"Marry that woman, Tony."

"I'm working on it."


	18. Chapter 18

Thor, staring at Loki, demanded, "You did _what_?"

* * *

T'Challa, staring at Shuri, demanded, "You did _what_?"

* * *

Tony, staring at Peter, demanded, "You did _what_?"

* * *

"I rescued them," said Loki.

* * *

"I rescued them," said Shuri.

* * *

"I came to rescue you," said Peter.

* * *

Given how badly all the prisoners wanted to get back to Earth, it took them a surprising amount of time to actually get their act together and board Pepper's spaceship.

First they had to greet their rescuers, and Sam took part in that with as much enthusiasm as anyone. Pepper was one of a crew of four — not exactly the four Sam would have chosen, but he conceded that his opinions would count for more when _he_ was the one bringing the spaceship. In any event, the rest of the crew consisted of Spider-Man, Ant-Man, and Maria Hill. Tony's reaction to the Spider-kid's inclusion was… not quiet. The kid, however, was riding an 'I rescued Mr. Stark' high and wasn't about to let Tony ruin the moment for him.

Then, once the handshakes and the hugs started winding down, the rescue team realized that Vision and Bruce Banner weren't among the lunar inmates. Pepper in particular was badly thrown by that: it seemed to be the only point where she might have miscalculated. Tony filled her in on the prevailing theory that Vision and Banner were being blackmailed into captivity by video footage of the lunar prisoners' precarious living situation. With any good luck, Pepper's rescue would effectively free the two of them as well.

Then Jean noticed that the leg of Spider-Man's costume was torn, and there was a bloody bandage beneath, and this prompted a whole lot more words on Tony's part. It eventually came out that the kid had been shot — "_Barely_!" — by a hybrid during some kind of operation that he, Ant-Man and some of Jean's crew had been running, though Sam still didn't have a good handle on when or why. (Linear storytelling was not one of the kid's strengths.)

Then the rescue squadron got collectively stuck at the front window, staring out at the endless terrain of dull grey rock and the deeply shadowed Earth hanging high in the night sky. It was a sight that Sam had more or less relegated to the background of his awareness… but the newcomers' wordless awe brought it all back. Most of the people in that room had been further from home than this. But there was something different about being able to _see_ the unimaginable distance they still had to cross.

"Does the sun ever come up?" Pepper murmured to Tony, who stood next to her with his arm around her back.

Tony was not looking out the window. He'd barely taken his eyes off Pepper from the moment the back wall of the kitchen had morphed into a hatch and she'd come floating through.

Softly, he answered, "It just did."

Then Ant-Man had to go to the bathroom.

Then Sam found himself gripped by a feeling of… he wasn't sure. It probably couldn't be called nostalgia, since it wasn't like he was going to miss being imprisoned on the Moon. But maybe he did stop for one last look out the window himself. Across all of history, only a handful of human beings had ever seen the view he was seeing, and once he left, he knew he would never see it again.

But then there came a point when all of the conversations and digressions and side-trips wound down, and the entire team filed back out through the kitchen and into the ship.

Science fiction had led Sam to expect spaceships to have artificial gravity, but there was no such luck with this one. They were all just as bouncy after they crossed the threshold. For that matter, real gravity was going to be a pain in the ass to get used to again after several days of near-weightlessness.

This particular ship was vertically oriented, looking more like a Saturn rocket than the Space Shuttle. The lower compartment consisted of a narrow corridor that separated two columns of shelves. Each shelf was just long enough and just tall enough for a human to lie down on as long as they weren't even a little claustrophobic. This was clearly how the seven prisoners had been transported to the Moon in the first place.

On the wall between the shelves — which Sam decided to call bunks instead, since he was going to have to lie on one — a couple of widely spaced rungs led to the upper compartment. There, the accommodations were a lot nicer: four comfortable chairs, scaled up to fit Brenith proportions, stood in two staggered rows facing the transparent canopy. Panels of touch controls sat in front of the two lead chairs. Sam didn't have a _damn_ clue how Pepper had gotten all of this stuff to work.

The interior was done in uninspiring shades of grey. Sam assumed that nanotech played at least some role in the structure (though if the whole ship was nano, he did _not_ want to know about it until after they'd landed). Maybe the right gesture at the right trigger point would produce some ornamentation, like it had in the trains back on j'Brenn. Not that he was going to experiment. For all he knew, the right gesture at the _wrong_ trigger point would open a hole in the wall.

There was some milling around as folks filed in and got a look at the accommodations. Spider-Man and Ant-Man both volunteered to stay below, which left two empty seats on the command deck that eventually went to Steve and Tony. Sam found a convenient bunk to slot himself into, and wondered why the hell there weren't any seatbelts.

The deep rumbling of an engine picked up from somewhere beneath him, and Sam's heart began to race. Pepper was a capable woman and she'd obviously flown this thing once already, but she wasn't a trained astronaut, and there were a lot of things that could go wrong during takeoff, every pilot knew that, and he was less and less happy about the fact that he couldn't even strap himself in, and—

That last complaint suddenly took care of itself. The vibrations from the engine increased and Sam could feel the gees slowly building. Just as the pressure reached about what he remembered Earth feeling like, the platform below him and the ceiling above transformed from flat surfaces to gently expanding cushions, like very slow airbags, until he was fully cocooned between the two layers. The claustrophobic passenger would not have been helped by these events at all. However, Sam finally understood how seven unconscious bodies could have been transported this way. Between the thrust and the cushioning, he was held securely in place.

It was a smooth takeoff. The g-forces were greater than he would experience on a commercial flight, but nowhere close to what he pulled with his wings. The thrust held steady for several minutes, then smoothly eased off. The nanotech airbags melted away back into the surfaces of the bunk, and Sam found himself floating free.

They were in space.

He shifted to one side and looked out past the shelf above him to the command deck. Through the canopy, the view hadn't changed that much: it was still a starry night sky. His field of view wasn't wide enough to see the Earth. But even if he couldn't see it, it had just gotten a little bit closer.

Pepper had told them that the trip back would take a few hours. There was a whole lot of catching up to be done, on both sides. Sam wasn't in a particular hurry to get started, though. This was his second space voyage — his first one conscious — and probably the last one of his life. For the moment, he was good with just taking it all in.

Other passengers, however, were twitchier. Just a few seconds after the airbags retracted, Spider-Man emerged from his bunk and climbed the wall to the top of the passenger compartment, which left him next to Sam's head.

"Hey, Falcon," he said.

"Hey, kid."

Peter hadn't seemed at all nervous for takeoff, but he was tense now. Sam had to wonder whether that bullet — even if it was just a graze — hadn't brought with it a bit more vulnerability than the kid was used to feeling.

"So you saw some action, huh?" he said.

"Yeah." Peter ducked his head sheepishly. "It maybe could have gone better. At first it wasn't so bad — those two hybrids were really fast, but I was getting the hang of them. But after Director Fury locked them up… Kel showed up. And this other Brenith. We fought them, and…" He glanced over his shoulder, toward the command deck, as if checking that he wouldn't be overheard. "I hit her. Hard. With these chunks of metal. I made her bleed. I never did that before. To her. You know?"

Ah. Sam got it now. This wasn't going to be an easy thing to talk about with Tony, since Peter knew as well as any of them how close Tony and Kel had been.

"I'm sure she wasn't giving you a choice," he said. "She isn't giving any of us a choice."

"But it's over now, right?" Peter continued. "We all know the Brenithi are behind the hybrids and everything, even though they've been pretending not to be. We just have to tell everyone. And then… they'll have to stop. They'll leave. Right?"

It was true that everyone on that spaceship and a few more on the ground had confirmed with their own eyes that the Brenithi and the hybrids were working together. Sam could have wished for a little more in the way of evidence beyond eye-witness accounts — the nanotech that Shuri had pulled out of their hands, maybe? Hopefully there was some aspect of it that could be identified as Brenith rather than Wakandan. But regardless, the story would be enough to get the ball rolling. Suspicions would mount, more investigations would begin, and sooner or later the world's governments would see the truth. And once they did, the Brenithi would just… let go of whatever prize had been worth all this trouble, pack their bags, and go.

Sure. That sounded totally reasonable.

"Something like that," he said to the kid.

Spider-Man sighed. "I didn't think so, either."

* * *

"Really, brother," Loki continued, "I would have thought you'd be pleased at the news. At least as pleased as you are about all the mounds of _plants_ lying about." He picked up a handful of papers at random from Thor's desk and eyed them critically.

Thor snatched the papers back and rose from his chair. "Those mounds of plants are our people's food for the next season, and no, Loki, I'm _not_ terribly pleased at the prospect of explaining to King T'Challa that you _kidnapped his sister_!"

Loki rolled his eyes. "Why does everyone assume that I absconded with the girl? I was aware that she's considered something of an expert in Midgardian technology—"

"Because you've been stealing that technology and passing it to the Brenithi."

"—so I presented the problem to her, and she agreed to accompany me." He spread his hands with an air of wounded innocence. "You see? Not everything I do is nefarious. We returned hours ago — I'm sure T'Challa already knows."

Thor wanted to pace the room, but the tiny cabin was much too small for that. The desk was really just a panel that folded down from the wall, and when it was deployed, there was barely enough remaining floor space for Loki and him to stand.

He had to settle for glaring more fiercely and demanding, "How did you travel there?"

"If I can convey you and a longship from Asgard to the realm of the Dark Elves, surely I can convey one mortal to her own planet's satellite," Loki replied. "And, in anticipation of your next protest: I was able to locate your Avenger friends because one of them has some rudimentary skill at telepathy. I doubt that it was _me_ whom she was attempting to contact, but strokes of good fortune do occur. And now, as soon as a suitable mode of transportation can be arranged, they can return safely without fear of immediate recapture."

"Since you're so adept at _conveying_, why didn't you bring them back yourself?"

"The Brenithi trust me, remember? In the long term, I'm far more valuable to you as an informant. I could hardly risk my position on the inside by emptying their prison."

Thor suspected that Loki wasn't telling him everything — which, admittedly, was the same feeling he got whenever Loki spoke. However, he couldn't identify any specific portion of the story that rang false. Everything that Loki had described was within his capabilities, and he did occasionally — on his own terms, on his own schedule, generally at a price and often with an angle or an ulterior motive — help. And it caught Thor off-guard every time he did it.

(Perhaps that was why he did it.)

"I see," Thor said. "Then you'll be pleased to hear of another stroke of good fortune. A suitable mode of transportation _has_ been found. King T'Challa informed me this afternoon that Stark's consort stole a Brenith spaceship, located the prison and freed the prisoners. I understand they're en route to Wakanda as we speak."

Loki's eyebrows lifted in surprise for a moment, then he shrugged it off. "In that case, the problem is solved," he said. "I'm glad I could help." Before departing the cabin, he paused in the threshold and looked back at Thor. "You know, brother, sometimes I wonder how you would ever manage without me."

"I would sleep more soundly, for one," Thor muttered after Loki had left.

Loki's involvement notwithstanding, the news was very promising. The hybrid infiltrator in Wakanda had been caught and his plan foiled. Now the Avengers had been found and freed. Soon the Brenithi would have no choice but to confess to their treachery. Perhaps, once they saw that their outrage had been stoked by an outside influence, the segment of the Wakadan population calling for New Asgard's expulsion would soften their stance.

And he, Thor, had done nothing throughout the entire crisis except work on construction projects and create mounds of plants. Maybe that was the real reason that Loki's story bothered him: Thor wanted it to be a lie or a cover for some scheme because the alternative was that Loki had been of far more help to the Avengers than he had.

(It was an unworthy thought. Not that Mjolnir could judge his worthiness anymore.)

Thor shook himself. If the crisis was truly past, then he was grateful. And at least there was one thing he could do. He could give his friends a welcome home.

* * *

T'Challa had thought that _he_ would be the one to deliver surprising news. But Shuri's casual revelation about her recent travels had left him shocked and angered.

"You do realize," he said tightly, "that Loki is the one who stole your Kimoyo beads and passed them to the hybrid who nearly defeated the Avengers in Germany."

She diverted her attention from one of the many holodisplays in her lab just long enough to give him a patronizing look. "Yes, thank you, brother, I did work that out."

"And yet you let him transport you to the Moon?"

"Since you refuse to launch anything bigger than a satellite, when else was I ever going to get the chance?"

"And he's able to teleport. You're sure of this?"

"I think I would have remembered a spaceship."

"Do you have any idea how he did it?"

"Not yet," Shuri said. She spun her stool across the room to her sand table, and picked up a tablet that lay on the corner. "But I took energy readings on the trip, and I plan on finding out."

* * *

"The Tesseract," Hill repeated darkly. "Loki brought the Tesseract back to Earth. You're sure?"

"No question," Tony said. "He used it to drop in on us twice. Once with a passenger."

"Does Thor know?"

"Not sure, but I'd like to think if he did, he would have given us a heads-up."

"Then we need to tell him as soon as possible."

"I agree," said Pepper, "but I don't think we should trust that conversation to an alien radio." She touched the earpiece that she had been using to keep King T'Challa informed of their progress, and to secure permission to land. "I haven't said anything that the Brenithi don't already know."

Hill's lips thinned, but she gave a nod. "You're right. _Dammit_. This situation did not need to get more complicated."

Sam — who was taking a turn up front in the good chairs while Steve floated in the back — had figured that the Tesseract would be the biggest shock of the debriefing session. But the rescue team paid them back in full when Pepper finished explaining how she'd found the ship.

"You… beat a hybrid," Sam said, staring at Pepper. "The blonde from the desert—"

"Anna," Natasha supplied from her bunk.

He shrugged. "Anna. Okay. You and Anna got in a fight… and you _won_?"

"I held her off to the point where she didn't feel it was worth the risk to continue," Pepper said, like she was recounting another day at the office. "Although I also understand from Spider-Man that she may have broken off because she received new orders from the Brenithi. If so, then that was a certain amount of luck."

Sam nodded slowly. "Sure. Right. _How_?"

Knowing looks passed between Pepper and Tony, which wasn't surprising. Steve blinked in open puzzlement. Enough of the remaining passengers were naturally inscrutable that Sam couldn't get a good read on who else, if anyone, was in on the secret.

"I'd rather not discuss the details right now," Pepper said after a brief pause. "Let's just say that I proved to be more of a challenge than she was expecting. Alisha got your location, Anna ran, and I caught up with the rest of the team in the desert."

"Speaking of Anna," Natasha said, "there's something else you should know."

* * *

Pepper had an interesting interpretation of "check in at regular intervals". There was no definition of a regular interval that lasted long enough to include a _round trip to the Moon_. Having to get the news from T'Challa made it seem even worse, although Rhodes had to admit that he didn't know how else he could have found out. The beads on his wrist, however versatile, probably couldn't receive a transmission from a spaceship.

But regardless of what he might think of Pepper's mode of delivery, he had the message now, and it was up to him to pass it on to Barnes.

Since Barnes was going to sneak up on him anyway, Rhodes let him do it in the foyer where there were multiple entrances, rather than in the cafeteria where he had to materialize through a wall. Feeling as though he'd scored an important moral victory, Rhodes led Barnes past the buffet line and took a seat at one of the tables.

"I've got good news," he said once Barnes was seated across from him. "Pepper found the team. They're on their way back."

Barnes took a second to absorb that, then his chin jerked down slightly. "Good."

"Do you want to know where they're on their way back _from_? The Moon."

Another second. Then: "Huh."

"You can say that again," said Rhodes, who felt like he was doing more than his fair share of the work in this conversation. "The Brenithi built a prison on the Moon, and that's where they dumped the team. Pepper stole a spaceship, flew it up there and broke them out again. They're on their way back here right now. Thor gave her permission to land in New Asgard. They're due to arrive within the hour. I hear there's gonna be a homecoming party."

He watched as Barnes mentally cycled through his vocabulary of one-syllable words, then came back to the tried and true.

"Good."

"Did anyone ever tell you you talk too much?"

"Yes."

It might have been one of Barnes' deadpan quips, except Rhodes saw the tiny flinch that came first. Too late, he realized that maybe some jokes were off-limits around the brainwashed POW.

With a face hot with shame, Rhodes continued, "All I meant was that we've got some news worth celebrating here. We caught the infiltrator, and we've got him dead to rights on trying to frame Wakanda for the murder of the UN team. Plus the Avengers know exactly who took them down, and pretty soon the world is going to hear all about it. We've got the Brenithi… well, I'd say 'red-handed', but… you know what I mean. We _won. _Unless there's something I'm missing."

Barnes exhaled, just audibly. "You won. Better if I stay out of it."

Rhodes leaned back and rubbed his forehead. "Okay, the UN folks were a bit upset." He would have thought that uncovering their _actual attempted murderer_ would have been worth a couple rounds from Barnes' assault rifle, but no, there were still quite a few hard feelings about that — and about Barnes' presence in general. "Trust me, they'll get over it once they spend some time talking to that hybrid in T'Challa's holding cell. Besides, they aren't invited to the party."

Very quietly, Barnes said, "Stark is."

Internally, Rhodes winced. It was weird to think that he'd only been working closely with Barnes for a couple days — with everything that had happened, it felt like a lot longer — but in that time… he sure as hell hadn't wanted to, but he'd started to like the guy. Where the Winter Soldier was this implacable force of destruction, Barnes was just a quiet, helpful guy who didn't want any trouble. You could do a whole lot worse than that in terms of folks to spend time with.

But Tony hadn't had the benefit of these last few days, and while Barnes was undeniably at the center of the events that had led to Rhodes' paralysis, he hadn't delivered the blow personally. Not like he'd done with Tony's parents.

"Okay," Rhodes said. "I don't have a good answer to that one. But Tony knows it wasn't you. Intellectually, he knows that. You might never get to be best buddies, but if you give him a chance to—"

But Barnes was shaking his head. "That's not the…" He pressed his lips together in frustration, then said, "I don't want to hurt anyone any more than I already did."

_Sometimes reality hurts. Ask me and my crushed vertebrae how I know. That doesn't make avoiding it the right decision_.

Rhodes didn't say that, though. "It's your call. If you don't want to come, I'm not going to pick you up and carry you. But if you're not there, you know Steve is going to spend the whole night pouting. Do you really want to put the rest of us through that? Think about it."

* * *

The Earth now loomed large in the view through the canopy, and the rumbling of the engine had started again. They were almost home.

Sam had given up the front seat and was back in his bunk. Based on the conversation that he was hearing from the command deck, his was the more comfortable location.

"Ah… honey?" Tony said. "The Moon is one thing, but Earth has a whole atmospheric entry situation. Are you sure you've got this?"

The voice of FRIDAY, Tony's AI assistant, said from the console, "Heat shield calculations have been completed and checked, boss."

Pepper added, "If you're not comfortable watching from up here, you're welcome to sit in the back."

"That's a little cold. Considering I've been stranded on the Moon in conditions of the most abject privation for… I have no idea. How long were we up there? Two, three months?"

Sounding unimpressed, Hill replied, "As best we can tell, it was about three days."

"Huh. There's clearly a relativity paper in there somewhere. Time dilation under conditions of extreme… boredom."

"Well, King T'Challa tells me that Thor is throwing us a welcome-home party," Pepper said, "so you'll have lots of people to talk to about it."

"Assuming we don't burn up on reentry. The nose is a little high, don't you think?"

"Go sit in the back, Tony."

* * *

It ended, like it had begun, with a party.

The only downside about returning to Earth was that gravity was back. Steve's body was nice enough to adjust almost immediately, but his fellow former prisoners groaned and limped their way through the hatch of the ship and onto the grass plains of Wakanda.

Thor came to the landing site to greet them. He'd changed a lot since the last time Steve had seen him in person, the short hair and the eyepatch being the most obvious differences. But more than that, he seemed tired. Maybe this was a redundant statement about the God of Thunder, but Steve remembered Thor as someone who crackled with energy, even when he was still. Now some part of that energy seemed to have been suppressed.

(And Steve got it, or at least a part of it, maybe better than some of the others did. He too had lost an entire world, and been forced to reconstruct a life in a terrifyingly unfamiliar place, knowing that almost everyone he'd ever known was dead.)

Thor also had Loki with him, and that could make anyone tired. His presence might have passed for a gesture of concern or welcome, but Steve was pretty sure it was actually a way to gloat over his role in the rescue. They urgently needed to let Thor know that Loki had the Tesseract, but clearly the right moment to have that conversation was _not_ with Loki himself standing by.

The settlement that could only be New Asgard was straight ahead of them. Thor greeted all of the Avengers and was introduced to the newcomers, then led the way into town.

Steve had heard a little about New Asgard from Bucky, who'd been helping with construction there for several weeks. He nodded to himself as features came into view that matched Bucky's descriptions.

The settlement was divided into a residential area on one side and communal farmlands on the other. The streets of the village, though obviously planned, were not laid out in a sterile grid pattern but curved gently around each other in spirals and loops. No two houses were identical, and they varied in size to accommodate larger or smaller families. However, none were obviously more opulent than the others. By his rough count, several dozen had been completed and were occupied, and about ten more were at various stages of construction.

But that wasn't nearly enough for a settlement of four hundred. Row upon row of small, temporary housing units sat next to the village. Given that the Asgardians were doing all of the labor themselves on top of launching an agricultural economy, Steve guessed that it could be years before everyone had a new home.

There was space for at least one planned park amidst the houses, and that was clearly where the party was being held. Steve could see groups of Asgardians working to set up rows of picnic tables. The outdoor setup wouldn't work once Wakanda entered its rainy season, but for the moment the weather was perfect.

Thor led them around one of those gentle curves, which put them on a path that led straight to the park. Waiting for them past the turn was Colonel Rhodes.

Without a word, he marched straight up to Tony and pulled him into a hug.

"Easy on the bones, there, buddy," Tony groaned, even as he clapped Rhodes on the back. "Sustained low-g is a bastard."

"The Moon?" Rhodes said after he let go. "The Moon, really? I take my eyes off you for five seconds…"

Clint cleared his throat. "Not that I'm not happy to see everyone, but if I don't sit down soon and eat some real food…"

"Go on ahead," Rhodes said. "I'll be right behind you. I just need a couple words with Tony and Steve."

Once the rest of the group had moved on, Steve said to Rhodes, "I assume you know that Bruce and Vision are still missing."

"Yeah, I heard," said Rhodes. "T'Challa is looking, but no luck yet. I've tried Avengers Compound and all the usual coms frequencies — there's no answer, and apparently there's been nothing about either of them reported on social media. Not much else we can do from here."

In the hopes of convincing himself, Steve said, "Wherever the Brenithi are keeping them, they'll have to give them back now that they've been discovered."

"Right," said Tony, who didn't sound completely persuaded either. "And speaking of those little devils, any new developments?"

"Not much," Rhodes replied. "The hybrid we caught inside Wakanda hasn't said a word. The UN folks are still a little shaken up over _how_ we caught him, but I think most of them are finally on board with the idea that Wakanda is being framed. Though some genius recently floated the idea that T'Challa staged the entire operation purely to _convince_ them that Wakanda was being framed." He scoffed. "Anyway, you guys are the trump card. You all saw Kel turn on you, and you saw Kith and the hybrids together. Once you get on TV and start telling your story, it'll be over."

"We get to eat first, though, right?" Tony said. "Real food, not tasteless alien cardboard food?"

Rhodes grinned. "Yeah, the kitchens have been at it all afternoon. You won't be disappointed. Go ahead and grab a seat. There's one last thing I need to talk to Steve about."

Steve hadn't been expecting that request, and Tony obviously hadn't, either. But after a blink of surprise, Tony acquiesced and headed off after the rest of the group.

"What's up?" Steve asked Rhodes, and braced himself for the next problem.

But Rhodes did not look like a man about to deliver bad news. In fact, he had a grin on his face.

"Turns out you and I have a mutual friend."

That was a weird remark, as Steve would have guessed that they had several mutual friends — almost all of them in that very settlement.

"I'm sure you remember him," Rhodes added. "Tall, not a big talker, long hair, artificial arm?"

Then it was Steve's turn to grin — both at the reference and at the fact that Rhodes was referring to him as a friend. "Bucky."

"He played a major role in uncovering the infiltrator. We've been keeping that quiet for the moment — his idea, not mine or T'Challa's — though you should probably know that the UN team saw him. The fact that he's been living in Wakanda is going to come out sooner rather than later."

Steve nodded. That was going to cause problems. In the short term, the storm would probably land most heavily on T'Challa, and watching the press rehash the Winter Soldier's history all over again — even just those parts of it that had become public knowledge — would be hard on Bucky.

And yet, maybe some good could come out of this, too. It was time for the world to recognize, the way Steve always had and the way Rhodes now did, that Bucky wasn't an enemy combatant but a victim of Hydra. He wasn't responsible, morally or legally, for any of the things that his programming had forced him to do. It was time — long past time — for him to leave that part of his life behind and go back to being Bucky Barnes.

"He did good, Steve," Rhodes added. "I don't think I could have beaten this thing without him."

And Steve was grinning again. "Thanks."

"So here's the deal," Rhodes said more sternly. "I won't lie to Tony, but I also don't see a reason that he needs to hear about Barnes right this second. You might have noticed that when it comes to this, Tony doesn't deal well with surprises. We're going to have a good old-fashioned Asgardian feast, then I'll talk to him privately and try to defuse the blast a little. Until then, you're not going to rub it in his face. Got it?"

Steve nodded. "That's fair."

"Good." Rhodes arched his eyebrows. "Well?"

Drawing a blank, Steve echoed, "Well?"

Rhodes nodded past Steve's shoulder. "What are you waiting for?"

Steve turned.

Standing between two houses in mid-construction was Bucky.

They'd spoken frequently during Steve's house arrest. The marvelous modern invention of video chatting meant that they'd been able to look each other in the eye while sharing their mundane weekly updates.

But a viewing screen didn't compare to this. It would _never_ compare to this.

Steve didn't remember crossing the lawn. The next thing he knew, he was hugging his best friend.

There were a lot of details that he picked up peripherally, to be sorted out afterward. Bucky was wearing Wakandan fashions: light trousers and a long-sleeved tunic over a more Western-looking T-shirt. The metal arm was rigid and unyielding where it pressed against Steve's back. Bucky's hair hung loose to his shoulders and actually made the hugging thing a bit awkward, because Steve hadn't turned his head correctly and now a strand was tickling his nose.

It was, in fact, the most perfect moment in the world.

"The Moon, huh," Bucky said once they were standing apart again.

"Yeah," Steve replied. "If you ever have the chance to go, don't bother. It wasn't great. How about you — keeping busy?"

"Trying. Not how I wanted to be, but…"

"I know." And although he already knew the answer, Steve asked, "Are you staying for dinner?"

Bucky shook his head. "Not my thing."

Once upon a time, in the segment of his life that Steve still thought of as _real_, that hadn't been true at all. Bucky had been bright, gregarious, charming, at home in every crowd. It was Steve — the sickly, scrawny, angry one — for whom a meal with a roomful of friends would have been _not his thing_. (Also, he would not have been able to fill a room with his friends, unless the room was a closet.)

The unfairness of it still _burned_, and even though he knew it wouldn't change anything, he still said, "You have every right to be there, and to take credit for the things you've done. You don't have to—"

"Steve."

He sighed and dropped his chin. _Rule zero: don't push_. He supposed it applied here, too. "Okay. I get it. I'll call you after?"

Bucky nodded. Where once he would have flashed a jaunty grin, now there was just a slight softening at the corners of his eyes. "Stay out of trouble."

"How much trouble could there be? It's just a party."

(In retrospect, it was the wrong thing to say.)

By the time he joined the party, it looked like the entire settlement was in attendance. Every table bore its own feast: a roast at the center, surrounded by dishes of potatoes, rice, and various greens. It smelled _fantastic_.

The Avengers were spread across two of the tables, and Steve followed Sam's friendly wave to sit down between him and Rhodes, across from Tony and Pepper. From his side of the table, Steve could see the tall, slender shape of their stolen spaceship rising above the roofs of the neighborhood.

Tony — as he himself would remind anyone who asked — was a smart guy, and he'd probably figured out who Steve had been talking to. He didn't bring it up, however.

"You're just in time," he said instead. "I sure wasn't going to save you a plate. It's every man for himself out here."

"Thanks for the warning," Steve said, and reached over to fork some slices of ham onto his plate.

But he'd barely taken the first tender, juicy bite when he heard the familiar overhead whine of an approaching engine.

Steve sat up sharply and scanned the sky. His neighbors without enhanced hearing startled at the sudden movement.

"What have you got, Cap?" Sam asked.

"We're about to have company."

No sooner had he said it than the Quinjet disengaged stealth mode.

It closed in fast, cornered neatly in the air, and settled down just south of the picnic area between two freshly built houses. The back hatch slowly opened.

The first one down the ramp was Kith, and that was more than enough to bring every Avenger to their feet. Next was Kel, and behind her was a tall, young-looking Brenith with long hair whom Steve didn't recognize. Then came Anna, the woman from the desert, and lastly a human man whom Steve also didn't recognize, with short black hair just starting to grey at the temples, and a strong build and confident stride.

Sensing his question, Rhodes leaned in and said quietly, "The last guy is W'Kabi. A Wakandan. He's the hybrid who blew up the Great Hall."

Kith's entourage spread out on either side of him: Kel and the other Brenith were to his left and right, and the two hybrids flanked them.

Kith spread both hands, and Steve knew enough about the culture to recognize the bared palms as an insult. "Behold!" he announced. "The carcass of Asgard!"

As much as Steve wanted to charge in, this was Thor's settlement. Thor was already advancing to meet the invasion, flanked in his turn by Loki and a tall Asgardian woman with a broadsword over her shoulder. Based on his conversations with Bucky, Steve guessed that this was Valkyrie.

"You and your kind are not welcome here!" Thor proclaimed.

"And yet here I stand," Kith replied, "and you are powerless to prevent it. Because Asgard — the great and mighty Asgard, that guarded wealth, knowledge and power so jealously, that proclaimed itself a bastion of justice yet destroyed any race who dared challenge its supremacy — _Asgard is no more_! I am honored, Asgardian, to bear witness to your failure!"

"So you're not even trying for subtlety anymore, huh," Tony said. He gestured back and forth between Kith and his allies. "Remember the part where you were the innocent victims whose genetic material had been stolen without your consent? Don't get me wrong, your story's blown. I just would have thought you'd cling to plausible deniability for a little bit longer. Oh, and by the way, I'm gonna need that plane back."

Kith smiled genteelly. "Yes, your affiliates were more annoying than we had anticipated. Well done. And yet I also have to thank you, because you brought a weapon into my hands more powerful than ever I dared imagine."

The Brenith that Steve didn't know shot his hand forward, and somehow from inside his sleeve a thick metal chain flew out. It wrapped around Loki's neck in the space of a heartbeat, and the Brenith gave a brutal backward jerk.

"_No_!" Thor bellowed, but Loki was already airborne. He flew directly towards Kith, who clamped a massive hand around his face.

Thor and Valkyrie froze mid-pace, and so did everyone else.

"I enjoy history," Kith said conversationally as he forced Loki onto his knees before him. "It's so often instructive. Take, for example, the history of the Infinity Stone known as the Space Stone. It has been seen on more than one occasion on this very planet — most recently during an incident involving this creature in my hands, which resulted in it being taken to Asgard. Then Asgard was destroyed. The natural assumption is that the Stone had been lost. Unless one is in position to observe a fascinating piece of evidence."

"A suggestion," Kel said to Loki. "If you want to teleport in secret, don't do it around an empath."

Kith leaned forward over Loki, and in a voice still loud enough to be heard by all, he said, "Give it to me or I will kill every last Asgardian one by one while your brother watches."

Loki was silent, whether because of Kith's influence or out of self-preservation it was impossible to tell. From between Kith's fingers, Steve could see his eyes shift in Thor's direction, then back up to his captor.

Moving slowly, he reached one hand behind his back. His wrist circled, and then in his palm sat the Tesseract.

Steve tensed—

"One move and this one dies," Kith announced, "and the dregs of the Asgardian race will follow. Or you can control yourselves, in which case I give you my word that New Asgard will be spared."

Thor turned, and his eyes met Steve's. "Please," he said.

There was no way that Thor was foolish enough to take Kith at his word. But Kith didn't really need to bargain and they all knew it. Even if they rushed him, even if they stopped the combined force of three Brenithi and two hybrids, even if they took back the Tesseract… Kith would without question murder Loki.

It was a death that Steve wouldn't necessarily mourn. But Thor would.

Kel crossed to Loki. She extended her right arm, and the nanotech in her clothing flowed down her sleeve and formed into an extension of her forearm. It wasn't a sword this time, but a golden artificial hand. She plucked the Tesseract from Loki's palm, then turned to Kith and went down on one knee.

(Which looked ridiculous, Steve thought uselessly, given how small she was already compared to Kith. From that position, she had to stretch her arm up as far as she could to offer him what she held.)

Kith's free hand closed around Kel's artificial wrist. The hand smoothly pulled free of her, and transformed in Kith's grasp to a longer, more slender device that cradled the cube at its center. Faintly, Steve heard a _crunch_; then the shards of the cube tumbled to the ground, leaving only the Stone itself within a sheath of nano.

Kith raised his arm and aimed the device over the heads of the assembled Asgardians. A moment of stillness.

Then a brilliant blue-white beam shot out from the end of the weapon. It cut through the upper floors of two consecutive houses before it escaped New Asgard and struck the Wakandan shield.

The holographic illusion died instantly, leaving a massive golden dome that pulsed and wobbled as it tried to absorb the ferocity of the attack. Then the shield, too, failed. The dome evaporated, leaving the towers and lights of Birnin Zana plainly visible in the distance.

"Inform the Wakandan king—" Kith's tone made it clear exactly what he thought of that title "—that I will return in one hour to collect the vibranium mountain. Any humans remaining in the structure at that time will be forfeit to the Brenith empire. And young man, since you asked?" Kith's eyes met Tony's and he gave a toothy grin. "You can have your plane back."

He swept his arm over his shoulder and activated the weapon again, and that unstoppable beam sliced horizontally clean through the Quinjet from wing to wing.

"Slightly damaged," he added.

He released his grip on Loki, who dropped to the ground, unmoving. Then — with the supreme confidence of a man who had mastered an Infinity Stone — he and his allies turned and walked away, heading towards their spaceship.

Thor raced to Loki's side, then had to turn quickly and stop Valkyrie from pursuing the Brenithi. Kith didn't even twitch; none of them did. They all knew they'd made their point.

Jean had been at the far end of Steve's table. She'd come to her feet like the rest of them, and like the rest of them, she hadn't made it another step. Looking more helpless than Steve had ever seen her, she turned to the group and asked, "What just happened?"

Steve wished he could give her a comforting word. But all he had left was honesty. "I think we just lost."

**End of Part 2**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would say that there will be a hiatus before Part 3 begins, but I'm not exactly on a regular posting schedule anyway. Let's call it a longer than normal pause.


End file.
